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Crappy film

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Sometimes a movie can hit you a certain way, and then when you go back to recapture what you remember, it's gone like some dream. This was one of the more extreme examples for me, a delightful farce when I saw it in high school that became a lead balloon for me as a middle-aged adult.In the last full month of World War I, German troops prepare to evacuate a French town, but not before laying explosives to blow it up the next time the church clock strikes midnight. The townspeople learn of this and flee, so when Scottish soldier Pvt. Charles Plumpick (Alan Bates) shows up to reconnoiter, he finds only escapees from the local insane asylum, a merry band who make Plumpick their king. But he knows about the explosives, and tries to get them to leave."What characters!" Plumpick exclaims. "I can't let you die!"I think that was the brief director Philippe de Broca gave his cast, to play up their various mild forms of insanity for all they could as they don the outfits of the townspeople who fled. It is what passes for comedy in this undernourished farce.Geneviève Bujold plays a woman named Poppy who flounces and curtsies after finding a tutu, while Michel Serrault becomes a mincing hairdresser when he comes upon a fancy wig. Adolfo Celi plays Bates' Scottish commander, which means we get to watch the normally menacing Italian actor in a kilt doing a jig. The supporting performances are entirely too broad. There are also chess-playing monkeys and an elephant waving a white flag, which draws a Benny-Hill-type reaction from investigating soldiers. It's that kind of film.Bates meanwhile is entirely too subdued in the lead role, probably because it requires him to play unconscious entirely too often. He falls for Poppy and accepts the crown, but he's otherwise frustratingly passive and given to acting as oddly as anyone else.The point of the film, as other reviewers note, is the insanity of war and who are the real mad people anyway. It's an entirely too obvious point dragged across the screen like a plowshare. Plumpick's commander keeps calling him "Pumpernickel" to show how dense he is, and assigns him the job of dismantling the explosives because he's a "specialist," not bothering to learn it's the wrong kind. But we see the Germans wantonly killing civilians and laying explosives to demolish the town, making Plumpick's mission a humanitarian one.The insanity aspect is weakly handled, too. I understand this is a farce and not a clinical study of people in altered mental states, but de Broca doesn't have any ideas what to do with the madness aspect other than have his inmates toss a rugby ball around a street or carry colorful umbrellas from scene to scene."You pay customers?""Yes, that's why business is good."I kept wondering why I liked this film so much back when. Maybe because it presents a kind of funhouse mirror to society I found appealing then. "King Of Hearts" does have visual charms, a pleasingly Mancini-lite musical score, and a final pair of scenes that are surprisingly eloquent in delivering a satisfying ending. But it was hard to appreciate them as much when I found the rest of the film a chore to sit through. Were my expectations too high? Maybe, but it wasn't helped by the weak story, lame humor, and forgettable characters.

Anti-war comedy that takes place in 1918 during World War 1 in France. Private Charles Plumpick (Alan Bates) is sent to a small French town to dismantle a bomb that the Germans put there. Unknown to him the residents of the town have all left and the insane asylum has been left wide open. The inmates take over the town and Plumpick can't figure out why people are acting so strangely.This was ignored when it came out in 1966 but acquired a cult following soon after. The movies message is VERY anti-war and college students responded to it (the Vietnam war was in full swing when this came out). At one theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Central Square Theatre) it played for 5 YEARS with college students seeing it again and again. I was only a kid when this came out and didn't catch it until the 1980s when I was in college. Brattle Theatre (also in Cambridge) played it quite a bit with another college cult movie "Harold and Maude" and I saw it every time it played (which was quite often).While I don't disagree that the movie is simplistic and VERY dated I still loved it! The humor in this comes mostly from the antics of the inmates but also shows the German and British armies as being run by total idiots. The humor is not in your face--it's very gentle and sweet but works. The anti-war message is subtle but I think it's easy enough for anyone to get. The acting was good by the whole cast--especially Bates (his reactions to the antics of the inmates is priceless). Supposedly most of the people reviewing this who loved it saw it as children in the 1960s and have fond memories of it. Younger reviewers seem to hate it. Well I didn't see it till I was in college and loved it! Not for everybody but for those who like off beat foreign movies this will be a treat! I give it an 8.

In 1967, my young husband and I blundered on this movie as part of a double feature. We were waiting to see the beginning of another movie that we had watched from the middle, having arrived late, as was customary at that time. As this masterpiece, unheralded to us, unfolded, we turned to each other in wonder. Later, we learned of its highly deserved cult status. I was unaware that the 60's were to be a golden age of cinema; one needs distance to appreciate this. Le Roi de Coeur is elegant, beautiful, visually charming, humorous, and finely acted. And in the service of a serious theme, as well. Most highly recommended, and far above current movie productions of any type.

One of the best films I have ever seen. I was a child when I saw it and I still remember how it touched me.Alan Bates is superb and I found Genevieve Bujold very pretty and talented.I can't remember details, but I'm sure I could not take my eyes off the screen.I went with my parents and my sister and we kept talking about the film for almost a week at dinner time.After seeing this film I tried to keep track of Alan Bates and I was never disappointed. I remember him in " Zorba " with Anthony Quinn. I have been trying to find the DVD to rent, but I couldn't find it anywhere in Brazil. I also tried to follow Genevieve Bujold's career , but the last time I saw her act was In " Twins " with Jeremy Irons. I recommend ' The King of Hearts " to all people and I sometimes mention it to my students.