Great Scene: “King of Hearts”

In a fundamental way, screenwriting is scene-writing, so the more we learn about this aspect of the craft, the better.

Today’s scene: The 1966 movie King of Hearts, Daniel Boulanger (scenario and dialogue), Maurice Bessy (idea). IMDb plot summary:

An ornithologist mistaken for an explosives expert is sent alone into a small French town during WWI to investigate a garbled report from the resistance about a bomb which the departing Germans have set to blow up a weapons cache. He arrives to find a very eccentric group of townspeople, inmates of the local insane asylum, as it turns out, who have stepped into the characters of the fleeing villagers.

After rival forces have slaughtered each other in the town’s square, Plumpick (Alan Bates) watches as his new-found friends decide what to do… leading to his own decision.

This is a little gem of a movie, definitely of the 60s era, but well worth the watch. It poses a fundamental question about humanity: Which is crazier… war or insanity?

The images of the asylum inmates rejecting the insanity of real life, shedding their trappings of that world, then locking themselves inside the safety of their shelter are profound and beautiful. And Plumpick’s ultimate decision is a lovely touch.

Has anyone seen King of Hearts? Definitely worth a watch.

To read all of the entries in the Great Scene archive, go here.