Watch A Countess from Hong Kong For Free

Very well executed

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Good movie but grossly overrated

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I watched this film after reading some of the reviews thinking that even a bad Chaplin movie couldn't be all bad but this so-called comedy is a real stinker. I really don't know what Chaplin thought he was doing as nearly everyone seems to act like a lunatic in it. There are some real lows like when Brando buys clothes for Loren that are obviously ten times too big for her or Sydney Chaplin jumping up and down on the beach or Patrick Cargill thrashing around in the single bed which are all just plain silly. It proved one thing, that only Chaplin could do Chaplin and it's a pity that he hadn't been twenty years younger as he could have given a good performance in either the Brando role or the Cargill role. As it is, he is funny in the two brief scenes he appears in as the "Old Steward". Even the great Margaret Rutherford, in one of her last film appearances sadly, seems wasted in the brief scene she's in, which could have been a lot more humorous than it is.The script, apparently written by Chaplin, is just banal. The dramatic scenes, near the end of the movie are good, especially with Tippi Hedren, but Brando looks like he's thinking, "How did I get myself into this". He actually does have comic ability, as he proved in "A Bedtime Story" a couple of years earlier, but not in this turkey.Very claustrophobic for the first hour of the movie with the scenes mostly taking place in Brando's luxury cabin, with he and Loren running madly from room to room like idiots. The three stars are for Chaplin's brief appearance, Tippi Hedren's dramatic performance and, of course, the lovely music composed by Chaplin himself. Indeed, Petula Clark had a number one hit with "This is My Song" derived from the love theme in it, even though apparently Petula hated the song. To sum up, viewer beware.

A Countess from Hong Kong is a comedy film and the last film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin and his only color film. The movie starred Marlon Brando, Sophia Loren, Tippi Hedren, and Sydney Earle Chaplin, Chaplin's second son.The story is based loosely on the life of a woman Chaplin met in France, named Moussia Sodskaya. She was a Russian singer and dancer that "was a stateless person marooned in France without a passport".Wealthy American diplomat Ogden Mears (Marlon Brando) is sailing from Hong Kong to Hawaii, where he hopes to meet and reconcile with his estranged wife Martha. However, while the ship takes on passengers in Hong Kong, a stowaway slips into Mears' suite. Natascha (Sophia Loren) is a White Russian countess who was forced to flee the country following the revolution and ended up in Hong Kong, where she earns a meager living as a dime-a-dance girl in a sleazy ballroom. When Mears discovers that Natascha is an uninvited guest in his quarters, she begs him to help her emigrate to the United States; when he refuses, Natascha tries a new tack, threatening to tell Martha that they've been sharing a stateroom if he doesn't cooperate. Mears grudgingly allows Natascha to stay with him and keep her secret until he can figure out a clever way to get rid of her. While many considered this as Chaplin's worst effort,it was still a lovely film.It may not be an excellent movie,but it is still a pleasure to watch for Brando and Loren alone.

Well, *I'm* certainly not going to pan a Charlie Chaplin film. Like all his films, it's certainly worth viewing. While it doesn't completely gel as a whole, it is an artistic film - that is to say it is an expression of the artist's vision of life at a certain point in his life - for Chaplin, the final years. There is dialog about politics, about death, sex, love, art. These comments often fly by at the speed of lighthearted comedy, but it is worth the time to watch the film a second time to catch them all.I found Brando's performance mesmerizing, though, again, did not gel with the film as a whole. Add to this the fact that he is acting with much inferior actors (Sophia Loren and Sydney Chaplin do not come to mind as great actors of Brando's caliber, as impressive as they may be).My chief regret is that the film was not as funny as I'd hoped. The glaring exception was the scene with the bedridden British dowager, played to hilarious perfection by Margaret Rutherford.

A Countess From Hong Kong was the last film Charles Chaplin directed, produced, and acted in, though he appears only very briefly as an old ship steward. The film stars a woefully miscast Marlon Brando as Ogden Mears, a U.S. Ambassador, who meets Sophia Loren, a runaway Russian Countess from Hong Kong. She stows away on Brando's ship, imposing on him while aboard. What could have have been a screwball farce in the 1930's or 1940's became a resounding dud in the 1960's. The script is the biggest letdown, and apparently Chaplin wrote it many years ago without revisiting it before shooting. The film simply isn't funny beyond a chuckle or two. Why he decided to cast Brando is anyone's guess, but the two did not get along during filming at all. Loren tries hard, but she would certainly have fared better with another light comedy type of actor. The film spends far too much time in Brando's room, and one gets the idea Chaplin had to economize on the sets somehow to be able to re-shoot scenes due to the rigidity of filming on a tight schedule in England. The always underused Tippi Hedren only appears in the last twenty minutes as Brando's suspicious wife. Chaplin's son Sydney as Harvey and Patrick Cargill as Hudson are the two bright spots in the film. Margaret Rutherford appears as Miss Gaulswallow in a nice cameo. Geraldine Chaplin appears as a young lass in the dancing scene, as well as Chaplin's younger children Josephine and Victoria. It's a very disappointing final film from Chaplin. *1/2 of 4 stars.