Mr. Chaplin should have heeded Goldwyn's advice. A telegram is terse and to the point. If the message of this movie is to call attention to the evils of McCarthyism, the message has been diluted by jabs at TV advertising, Cinemascope, teenagers, and by the inclusion of dragged out archaic slapstick, and an implausible romance. Falling fully clothed into a bathtub was old twenty years earlier. The business with the fire hose went on much too long and looked as if it had been lifted from a 1918 Chaplin short.The denouement is witless. If only HUAC could have been wiped away by spraying it with a fire hose. The kid, Rupert, had a stage father instead of a stage mother.
Review of A King in New York
