I first saw The King of Hearts at the Central Square Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts where it played in the late sixties for five solid years! Imagine! A film playing for that long a time in one theater! The film had bona fide cult status among students at Harvard, MIT, Boston U., and the many other schools in the Boston area. As well it might. There is no other film like this one, although The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Amelie come closest, perhaps, in the general “feel” that The King of Hearts (Le Roi de Coeur) evokes. This film is not without its detractors and the word most often used by such folks in dismissing it is “cloying”, a term also sometimes applied to the films with which I likened The King of Hearts. So, yes, if you have a low threshold for sentiment and idealism, this may not be the film for you. More’s the pity. My heart goes out to anyone who cannot love this amazing movie. This film, which was first released in Europe in 1966, is breathtaking in its unassuming perfection.

The King of Hearts is set in the town of Marville, France near the end of World War I, with the Germans in slow retreat but relinquishing territory as stubbornly as possible. A Scottish regiment is positioned outside of the town while the Germans are scurrying about preparing to abandon it. The German commanding officer has directed the comic Lt. Hamburger (Marc Dudicourt) to imbed a huge quantity of explosives in the blockhouse in the center of the town square. He instructs Hamburger to rig the detonation to the town’s elaborate mechanical clock, which consists of a life-sized knight that rolls out from the tower on a rail at exactly midnight, swings its iron spiked ball, whacking a massive bell. His instructions are overheard by the town barber who is shaving the commanding officer while he boasts, “You have a very artistic clock. The town will blow up artistically.” As a humorous aside, at this point, an aide with a brush mustache walks in during this scene and the German officer says brusquely, “Later Adolph, later!”

Unbeknownst to the Germans, the barber is also part of the French resistance in Marville and races back to his shop, warning the town’s people as he runs, to send a warning message to the allied troops via a radio device. He begins, “The mackeral likes flying.” His code name is “the mackeral” and this is how he alerts the allies that a message is coming. He continues, “Germans blowing up munitions before midnight. Do not enter town. The knight strikes at midnight!” Then, before he can further amplify, a German patrol bursts in and shoots him dead. Meanwhile, most of the inhabitants are fleeing town.

In the Scottish encampment, Colonel Alexander MacBibenbrook, the commanding officer, is handed the confusing communiqué from the mackeral. The troops, which were all set to march into town, are quickly disassembled. The Colonel is determined to try to save the town, but at minimal risk to his troops. He asks an aide if there are any among the regiment that speak French and it seems that Pvt. Charles Plumpick is the only one. Plumpick (Alan Bates) is an ornithology specialist – he cares for the carrier pigeons. We see him talking quietly to one of his pigeons in its cage and reading Shakespeare to it. Clearly he is more of a gentle soul than a rugged soldier. “Ask him to volunteer”, says the Colonel. The Colonel orders Plumpick, whom he repeatedly refers to as “Pumpernickel”, to enter the town alone to diffuse the bomb. Plumpick tries in vain to point out that he knows naught of explosives.

Plumpick hikes gingerly into town, wearing a helmet, carrying his rifle and a cage with two pigeons. He is spotted by a squad of German soldiers and flees through an open gate into an insane asylum, locking the gate behind him. This buys him enough time to shed his uniform and assume the attire of an inmate. Entering the ward, he meets a group of lunatics and joins them just as the Germans burst in. One colorful character introduces himself to the Germans as “The Duke of Clubs” and Plumpick, taking his cue from this, states that he is “The King of Hearts.” The Duke (Jean-Claude Brialy) grandly announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen . . . The king is back at last.” The Germans, realizing that they have walked into a loony bin, race out; Plumpick, meanwhile, has just become king of the fools.

Plumpick races out a short distance behind the Germans, hoping to acquire intelligence about the munitions stash. He is nearly clobbered by a telegraph pole axed by the last of the retreating Germans and, avoiding it, runs into a rock wall, knocking himself unconscious. Now the film begins in earnest! The town is entirely abandoned except for the residents of the insane asylum and Plumpick, as he rushed out, left all of the gates wide open. While Plumpick lies unconscious, the insane emerge into the wide, wide world. Sympathetic viewers will quickly understand that these are not the insane as they truly exist in the real world, but an idealized version of the mentally ill that symbolically represent all gentle, innocent, and eccentric people wherever and whenever they exist.

Here we are introduced to an amazing cast of characters – each played to perfection by their respective actors and actresses. We meet, for example, Mme. Eglantine (Micheline Presle), a middle-aged woman who soon makes her way to the town’s brothel. She sheds her institutional white coat, and we watch her applying make-up in front of a mirror over a lilting melody, symbolically reentering the “real” world and making up for her part in it. She has become the madame of the house of ill-repute, though this will be a house of innocent ill-repute. Decked out like a Bleaker Street trollop, she sits in her window and announces, “Come on in boys!” We meet, as well, the Crazy Barber (Michel Serrault), who dons a wig and moves with grand, sweeping gestures to a musical theme. Later, we learn that he pays his customers for letting him shave them! We meet another crazy person who assumes the role of a Bishop (Julien Gulomar), donning brilliant violet robes and a bishop’s headpiece. The Duke of Clubs, meantime, has become simply “The Duke” and has taken up with “The Duchess” (Francoise Christophe), who is decked out in a stylish snow white dress, with white hair, pale skin, and a white parasol. And we meet, finally, General Geranium (Pierre Brasseur) who dons a military uniform and headgear and then promptly lets the circus animals (belonging to a visiting carnival) out of their cages, saying, “Nice kitty.” Lions and a bear are now roaming free. All of this magical world, like a grand pageant, unfolds against a delightful musical score of sprightly dance numbers and carnival style music.

Plumpick regains consciousness at last, rubbing his eyes to check his visual acuity when the first things he spots is a large brown bear sidling lazily past. He enters a doctor’s office through a window and steals a change of clothing as a crazy doctor quietly enters and slyly watches. Reemerging into the town square, he encounters a grandly theatrical carnival atmosphere with all of the bizarre characters described above parading about in colorful costumes to raucous circus music, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. In the midst of this Alice-in-Wonderland atmosphere, Plumpick’s attention is riveted on his duty – to try to save the town from the impending explosion. His contact person is supposed to be the barber (the mackerel) but he finds in his stead the Crazy Barber. He whispers to him the secret code, “Confidentially: The mackerel likes flying”, to which he gets the straight forward answer, “Obviously.” As Plumpick tries to continue this conversation privately, the Crazy Barber adds, “Talk loud and nobody listens.” In the upside down world of insanity, paradox is truth! Plumpick, frustrated, demands, “I’m sick of all this doubletalk. Where’s the blockhouse?” The Crazy Barber replies, “What’s a blockhouse?” The essential conflict is now established. On the one hand we have Plumpick, the agent of the real world, with “important” business to be done, and the crazies who just want to be. Finally, Plumpick realizes that these are not the normal people of the town, but the insane.

Plumpick now sends his two pigeons with messages. In a creative plot twist, one pigeon is shot by the Germans who thereby receive half the message while the other gets through to the Scottish regiment. The message received by the Germans reads, “Blockhouse disappeared” while that received by the Scots states, “Difficulty. Wrong town. People Odd. Unable to make contact.” Colonel MacBibenbrook mutters, “The outcome of this entire campaign is in the hands of a stark raving lunatic.”

Meanwhile, Plumpick has followed several of the men sneaking into the brothel. He encounters the beautiful Mme. Eglantine. He asks her casually, “Are you a wh*re?”, to which she replies nonchalantly, “Yes.” “Do you know what war is?”, he inquires, and she equally nonchalantly replies, “No.” Later, she adds, “I live for the moment. That’s what counts.” The insanity presented here is the desire to just be rather than to do. Eglantine decides to select a young girl for Plumpick and the one that catches his eye is Coquelicot (Genevieve Bujold). She is unspoiled and beautiful, the epitome of innocence, and the improbable virginal hooker! Eglantine advices her, “Blush. Men go for that.” Coquelicot shyly asks Plumpick, “What would you like?”, but he can only answer, “To lose my memory!” -- the memory of the urgency of the job he has been sent to do. As he becomes increasingly attached to these charming people, his job becomes that much more imperative.

The Duke announces, “Love has brought the king back to us.” This is immediately understood by all of the insane characters to necessitate a coronation! Plumpick is spirited away by General Geranium’s men to the cathedral, where he is dressed for his anointment. The crowd assembles for the great ceremony. The Duchess appears grandly with her two “children”, who are actually two elderly insane people dressed as little toddlers. Plumpick repines, “Everyone’s so happy. I’ll be a wet blanket. These flowers . . . your friends . . . the kindness. All will die . . . and I can’t help.” Coquelicot replies, “A king can do anything.” Yet, he feels helpless.

Lt. Hamburger has returned to town with a small contingent in two armored vehicles to check on the “missing blockhouse.” Three Scots have been sent to check on Plumpick’s sanity. As the congregation sings a coronation anthem in the cathedral, the Germans roll into town and Plumpick rushes out to spy on them. When he’s spotted, he sprints back into the cathedral and is duly crowned while the Crazy Barber sings a falsetto chant. Plumpick is about to be seized by Lt. Hamburger when the German armored vehicles are commandeered by two of the loonies, General Geranium and the Crazy Barber. The vehicles wheel around the square wildly, discharging their cannons haphazardly, causing the Germans to flee. Plumpick, who has raced up into the cathedral spire to observe, rings the church’s great bell to celebrate liberation. “Let’s celebrate for three years”, says the Duke of Clubs. Antique bicycles now appear and another carnival spectacle is underway – with the three newly arrived Scot soldiers looking on in bewilderment. They take Plumpick aside and, dissatisfied with his explanation that these people are celebrating his coronation, they knock him out cold. Now an elephant comes sauntering past; a circus fire truck with loonies aboard drives by; a camel appears pulling a carriage with General Geranium and one of the Duchess’ children. That’s about as much as the Scots can bear and they race out of town as well.

The unconscious King of Hearts is dutifully carried by his subjects, in doleful procession, into the King’s bed chamber. Eglantine kisses him, saying, “He tastes like raspberries.” The Duchess also tries wakening him with a kiss while the Crazy Barber plays a solemn tune on a cello. The Duke puts his ear to the Duchess’ chest, as she describes what he listens to, “A beating heart . . . a secret clock. A heart whose beating will blend with the heart of our king.” Suddenly, she knows what the King requires: “A woman is what he needs! A woman of his own.” Eglantine and the Duchess march off to the brothel to fetch Coquelicot, a pearl as innocent as an apple. Coquelicot, as it happens in this whimsical tale, is also a high wire artist. Wearing black tights and a yellow ballerina-like skirt, she crosses on a wire over the street to enter the King’s second-story chamber through a window. Her kiss, naturally, is the one to awaken him. “Who are you?”, he asks, forgetting where he is. “Your fiancée”, says she. “Oh yes, I forgot!”, meaning he recalls that he’s among nuts. The clock now sounds six; time is running out!

The King frantically tries to crack open the blockhouse, but to no avail. He crashes one of the armored vehicles into it, but the vehicle simply explodes. As his loyal subjects gather around, he screams, “We’ll be blown up. Do you want to die?”, and they applaud and cheer as if watching a play. Finally, understanding his earnest concern, they offer their help by gathering for him every time piece in the town that might be the triggering mechanism. One even climbs the tower where the mechanical clock is housed, saying, “The last one is here”, but Plumpick, in despair, says, “I will you leave it.”

The King of Hearts now organizes the crazies for a march out of town, but at the town’s barrier wall, they hear the explosions of war in the distance and turn back, despite his urging them on. “Sir, come back. There are wild beasts. Can’t you hear them? They’re blood thirsty.” He stares back at them, turns forward, turns back again, and finally returns to his subjects. “He’s come back”, they say, and joyously greet him. Dejectedly, he says to the Duke of Clubs, “Yesterday you were in a nuthouse.” The Duke replies, “Jealous?” Then, after a pregnant pause, he adds, “And you, ‘Mr. King’ . . . yesterday . . . you were outside with ‘the others’.” Then he points at the sounds of war. The band strikes up the King’s polka. As the insane subjects return to their activities, the Cardinal says to the Barber, as they stand alone on the Cathedral balcony, “I’ve been coming up here every evening since I was, well, I was young . . . I already knew to love the world you have to get away from it.” Then, the scene cuts to Eglantine softly talking with the General as they lie quietly together, “Going to war?”, to which he replies, “I’m thinking of it.” “With what army?”, she asks. “There’s the rub”, says he. “Make your own army”, she offers, “We’ll make babies for you; a battalion of sturdy boys ”, as she points to her collection of prostitutes. We are reminded that mothers of each nation make the babies that later die as soldiers. These are powerful antiwar sentiments.

Night settles in. Midnight approaches and the German top officer and Colonel MacBibenbrook both peer through binoculars in anticipation of the midnight explosion. It is three minutes to twelve. Coquelicot stares blankly out the window of the King’s bedchamber and says, “You’ll see the knight come out.” Plumpick snaps alert and races out and up the tower. He finds the wire attached to the bell and tugs desperately to remove it. The knight begins its relentless march along the rail. It cocks its iron spiked ball, and swings – catching Plumpick on the nape of the neck. He laughs loudly. The town has been saved! The crazy citizens gather in response to their King’s exclamations of joy, the circus music resounds again, and celebration erupts. Colonel MacBibenbrook looks at his watch (it is five after twelve) and announces, “Pumpernickel pulled it off. The town is ours.” The Scots go marching in. In the German camp, the lack of an explosion at midnight produces another kind of result altogether. The German commanding officer orders Lt. Hamburger shot.

Coquelicot and the King of Hearts lie quietly together in candlelight in the display case of a store window. She says, coyly, “I want to make love.” “With a king . . . you’re not afraid?”, he asks. “It must be wonderful”, says she. “Tell me later”, he replies, as any unpresumptuous man would. They kiss as the loony subjects dance gracefully by. Into this scene, the Scots suddenly arrive. Always ready to join a celebration with such lovely people, Colonel MacBibenbrook orders a bivouac and congratulates Plumpick, “Good show pumpernickel. First rate.” The Duchess says to the Colonel, “I’d love to curl myself around that cute mustache”, which earns the crowd a Scotch bagpipe dance, first by the Colonel himself and then a squad of the regulars. Coquelicot innocently inquires, “What’s under their kilts?”, to which one of the insane replies, “Nothing.” Well, this is, after all, a French film! The Colonel calls for a fireworks display. The Germans, now well down the road in retreat, spot the fireworks and mistake it for delayed success for their munitions gambit. They turn back, expecting to be able now to easily retake the town.

Dawn arrives and the town awakens to doleful cello strains. The Scots fall-in planning to entertain their hosts with one last parade as they march back to duty. Plumpick is back in uniform and with his regiment – until the brothel girls extract him forcibly and gag him. Simultaneously, on the opposite side of the blockhouse, out of sight of the Scots, the Germans come marching back into town. “They’re unacquainted. Of course”, says one of the crazy people. Coquelicot tosses a bouquet of flowers to the departing Scots and a soldier in the last rank turns to pick it up and toss it back, but it lands at the feet of the back of the German regiment. Suddenly, they’ve seen one another. They quickly form into firing formation and, within seconds, both regiments are slaughtered. Only the two commanding officers, on horseback, remain, and they quickly kill one another with pistols. The Duke of Clubs, standing on the wall announces, “Thousands of soldiers !! Cannon!!” These are the “liberators” of the real world, but the insane quickly agree, “The joke has lasted long enough. To bed”, and head back to the asylum, scattering every worldly accoutrement that they’ve acquired in the walkway outside. Plumpick stands alone among the carnage to greet the liberators as they pour into town. The insane lock the gates of the asylum behind them.

Plumpick is duly decorated for his brave service by his new commanding officer. He marches with his new platoon down the cobbled street out of the camera’s eye. We wait. We wait some more. Then, Plumpick reappears, a solitary figure walking back. He drops his rifle, his helmet, everything, in fact, he has, save his cage of pigeons, and stands butt-naked at the asylum gate, as two nuns approach to answer the bell. It is at this point that the cheers erupted every night for five years in the old Central Square theater.

Clearly, what’s at issue in this film is the insanity of war. On the surface, it appears to be suggesting that the insane are less insane than the crazies who lead our finest young men to their deaths in these nutty national conflicts. The film was a product of the sixties culture which tended to romanticize mental illness in films such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. On closer inspection, however, I think that it’s really a comparison between peace-loving, pacifist, people of nonviolent disposition vs. hawks and hot-heads that take us too readily into conflict. To that extent, this is a film that will nestle more comfortably in the psyche of those who typically oppose elective wars. Yet, regardless of one’s own political philosophy, The King of Hearts approaches its somber message with such utter joyfulness as to make the film a treasure for anyone with a taste for light-hearted humor and satire.

The merits of this movie are many. The photography is special. The background in many shots is composed of light gray stone walls and streets which magnificently highlights the colorful costumes that appear in every scene. The musical score by Georges Delerue is utterly delightful and highly acclaimed. The performances are incredibly nuanced. Genevieve Bujold, who plays Coquelicot, went on to appear in such movies as Anne of a Thousand Days, La Guerre est Finie, and Trouble in Mind. Alan Bates had many successes, such as Zorba the Greek, Far from the Madding Crowd, and, recently, The Sum of All Fears. The character actors and actresses are a far bigger part of the success of this film than for most others. Every gesture in the The King of Hearts is part of the beauty of the story. Brialy, who shines in the role of the Duke of Clubs, also appeared in Cléo from 5 to 7 and Queen Margot. Serrault, who was extraordinary as the Crazy Barber, also appeared in such classics as Diabolique and La Cage aux Folles. Micheline Presle was magnificent in the role of Mme. Eglantine and appeared at a much earlier stage of her career in The Devil in the Flesh. Philippe de Broca, the producer and director of The King of Hearts applied the perfect touch in balancing message and humor and in the intricate choreography that went into so many scenes.

This is a film treasure that is so unique in its approach that it will never be closely duplicated. It will give great pleasure to all but the most sentiment-resistant codgers. Personally, I will enjoy it over and over again as long as I’m able.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from France:

Alphaville
Amélie
The Battle of Algiers
La Belle et la Bête
Bob le Flambeur
Le Boucher
Boudu Saved from Drowning
A Bout de Souffle
La Cage aux Folles
Céline and Julie Go Boating
La Cérémonie
La Chèvre
Children of Paradise
Cléo from 5 to 7
Un Coeur en Hiver
Contempt
Cyrano de Bergerac
Delicatessen
The Dinner Game
Diva
The Earrings of Madame de . . .
Entre Nous
Eyes Without a Face
La Femme Nikita
Forbidden Games
French Cancan
Grand Illusion
Harvest
Hate
The Horseman on the Roof
Jean de Florette/Manon
Last Year at Marienbad
Life and Nothing But
Madame Rosa
A Man Escaped
Le Million
Monsieur Hire
The Mother and the Whore
La Nuit de Varennes
Pépé le Moko
Peppermint Soda
Playtime
Providence
Rififi
La Ronde
Round Midnight
The Rules of the Game
Le Samourai
Summer
A Sunday in the Country
The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe
Three Colors
Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Vagabond
Wages of Fear

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age