King of Hearts [Le Roi de Coeur] ** (1966, Alan Bates, Pierre Brasseur, Jean-Claude Brialy, Geneviève Bujold, Adolfo Celi, Micheline Presle) – Classic Movie Review 12,240

Director Philippe de Broca’s 1966 French-Italian film King of Hearts [Le Roi de Coeur] is a sprightly, whimsical, Sixties pacifist comedy that, perhaps surprisingly, found its audience among the American art house cinemas.

Alan Bates stars as Signaller Charles Plumpick, a kilt-wearing French-born World War One Scottish soldier caring for war pigeons, who is sent by his commanding officer to defuse a bomb placed in a French small town square by the retreating Germans, and is hailed by a French town’s remaining population of escaped mental patients as their king, the sane folk all having left.

With a good script by Daniel Boulanger, and their roles well targeted by the capable actors, it is all quite clever and enjoyable.

It features Alan Bates, Pierre Brasseur, Jean-Claude Brialy, Geneviève Bujold, Adolfo Celi, Micheline Presle, Françoise Christophe, Julien Guiomar, Michel Serrault, Palau, Jacques Balutin, Pier Paolo Capponi, Madeleine Clervanne, Marc Dudicourt, Yves Robert, and Daniel Prévost.

It was only a mild success in France in 1966, but it achieved cult film status after US rights were picked up by Randy Finley and Specialty Films in Seattle in 1973. It was shown in repertory cinemas and in colleges across the US, running for five years at the Central Square Cinemas in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 1978, King of Hearts was adapted as a Broadway musical.

The cast are Alan Bates as Signaller Charles Plumpick, Jacques Balutin as Le Sergent Mac Fish, Daniel Boulanger as Le Colonel Von Krack, Pierre Brasseur as Le Général Géranium, Jean-Claude Brialy as Le Duc de Trèfle, Geneviève Bujold as Coquelicot, Pier Paolo Capponi as Un Officier Anglais, Adolfo Celi as Le Colonel Mac Bibenbrook, Françoise Christophe as La Duchesse, Daniel Prévost as Le Général Vallemat, Madeleine Clervanne as Brunehaut, Marc Dudicourt as Lieutenant Hamburger, Julien Guiomar as Monseigneur Marguerite, Palau as Alberic, Micheline Presle as Madame Eglantine, Michel Serrault as Monsieur Marcel, and Yves Robert.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,240

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