The precocious son of an aristocrat and a circus performer spends a lifetime in show business hoping to restore his family to their former glory.
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No offense to the genius of Charlie Chaplin, but in a mere 98 minutes this film is able to accomplish numerous things that the Little Tramp spent entire features on. Like Limelight or The Circus, it acknowledges its debt to the history of comic performance, it has jokes about the ever increasing modernization of contemporary society (a la Modern Times), and there is a World War II passage (The Great Dictator) as well as a precocious child (The Kid). Even the more socially minded works of Chaplin (Monsieur Verdoux and A King In New York) get a brief moment in the sun. This film literally has everything! By watching it we are privileged to witness the evolution of an art form. From stage to screen, from silent to talkie, from film to TV. In the end it is very much like Fellini’s 8 ½, it is literally a film about its own making. Oh and in case I’ve made this all sound too pretentious, it is also absolutely hilarious! That Pierre Etaix fellow truly is quite a little genius!
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