A Countess from Hong Kong **** (1967, Marlon Brando, Sophia Loren, Charles Chaplin, Sydney Chaplin, Tippi Hedren, Patrick Cargill, Margaret Rutherford) – Classic Movie Review 2551

Marlon Brando stars in A Countess from Hong Kong as the rich American diplomat Ogden Mears who spends his last night in Hong Kong with Russian Countess Natascha (Sophia Loren), who follows him on board his transatlantic ship. He finds her stowing away in his cabin wearing a ball gown and with no documents.

Writer-director Charles Chaplin’s last movie from 1967 may be a slightly disappointing entertainment but it is still an amusing and diverting old-world romantic comedy.

Despite the flatness of the handling, the playing of the hand-picked cast is bubbly and effervescent – with Brando surprisingly quite subtle in the comedy here and Loren a delight. They make a tasty pairing. And there is a pleasing final cameo from the great man of comedy Chaplin and an even more amusing one from Patrick Cargill as Hudson.

Also in the cast are Margaret Rutherford as Miss Gaulswallow, Sydney Chaplin, Tippi Hedren, John Paul as The Captain, Angela Scoular as The Society Girl, Peter Bartlett as Steward, Bill Nagy, Dilys Laye, Angela Pringle, Jenny Bridges and Michael Medwin.

Modest entertainment as it is, it is still a very real one. And there is no doubt that it would have been much better appreciated in cinemas in its day from anyone else than the then despised Chaplin, whose popularity had been destroyed through his supposed anti-American and communist sympathies.

Medwin, who plays John Felix, recalls: ‘The film was the most unrewarding experience, not the fantastic experience of working with a genius [Chaplin] that you’d expect. I disliked him enormously. You did exactly what he told you, it was almost done by numbers. He was awful, the atmosphere was terrible. Brando never came out of his caravan. No one was speaking.’

Michael Medwin (1923–2020).

RIP actor, producer and writer Michael Medwin OBE, who died on 26 February 2020 in Bournemouth, England, aged 96. He played characters called Ginger in four films: The Intruder (1953), Checkpoint (1956), Carry on Nurse (1959) and Rattle of a Simple Man (1964). He founded the film production company Memorial Enterprises with Albert Finney in 1965. He played Finney’s nephew in Scrooge (1970) even though he was 12 years older. He is also remembered on TV in The Army Game (1957) and Shoestring (1979).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2551

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