Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York was a film made out of anger, but, in typical Chaplin style, he used humor to express that anger. In 1952 he had essentially been exiled from the US because of his supposed Communist leanings. While living in Switzerland with his family, he eventually decided to make this satire of the then current American scene. Despite the setting, the film could never have been made in the US, but the European locations used…

After becoming a movie star at Mack Sennet's Keystone studio, Charlie Chaplin moved to First National Pictures Inc. in 1917, where he was given complete control over his films. This was his first short for them, and it marked a big improvement over the more crudely made Keystone films. In many ways, it shows how the genius of Chaplin's brand of physical humor lied in its simplicity. The short opens with with two hilarious scenes, the first showing The Little…

Gangster films in the 30's and 40's were often criticized for glorifying the criminal lifestyle. Hollywood often responded by softening the characters and making them more small time crooks than hardened criminals. This fun comedy is a good example of that; oh sure, Edward G Robinson plays a criminal, as he so often did, but he never so much as pulls a gun here, and his criminal enterprises never really get off the ground anyway.
It was directed by Lloyd…

A powerfully made, documentary like film about an uprising in the country of Algeria, The Battle of Algiers is still considered one of the best films ever made about political revolt.
It was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo and written by Franco Solinas, based on the non fiction book Souvenirs de la Bataille d'Alger by Saadi Yacef (Yacef was a member of the revolutionary National Liberation Front and wrote the book while imprisoned by the French). Set during the uprising in…