I Served The English King is a political spoof. It is hysterically funny many times as we watch a short weakling defend himself against waiters, Czech rabble, and a changing political scene. The movie opens with a man leaving prison after a 15 year sentence...he is released two months early and is sent to the German Czech border to find a house there to make his home. While there he meets two others who are his neighbors, a French professor, and a girl who is a prostitute in Prague. He has been given a key to the property but when he finds the totally ruined house he throws away the key since the door is torn from the frame. It turns out that he has time to rebuild and redesign this battered house. While there, he looks back at the drama of his life that has brought him to this point. When his neighbors leave, (they are searching for musical trees to find lumber to create musical instruments) he needs company so he sets mirrors around the house so that he can talk to himself for company. (Inside tip here too to my mind.)
So we flash back to when he is very young, trying to survive in prewar Czechoslovakia.
..Early in the film, we watch him craftily sell hot dogs to a man on a train, taking his time to give the man his change so that the train pulls away while he pockets the money leaving the man outraged on the back of the train that he has been cheated. He learns that all rich people love to stoop for change,and that becomes a running gag in the movie, throwing change on the floor to watch the rich get down on their hands and knees trying to pick up the change...He learns to keep the dollars for himself.
The movie is about money, about a man who begins life cheating his way and then meets a businessman who teaches him how to make his way through life earning and building a huge fortune...The man who befriended him invites him to his room where the young "shrimp" sees him counting his money, spreading it on the floor in front of him. From then on, the young waiter gets great jobs working in fine hotels, and through his eyes, we see the antics of the way the very rich play with their "women of the night", making the sex trade look glamorous and desirable, as it is created in such a funny way. This movie treatment of prostitution is very appealing and very amusing as with each and every woman that this man encounters, we get treated to watching nude women become covered with flowers, or food items, anything that makes the sex play fun and enjoyable...wonder if this only happens in movies, and t.v. shows. Anyway, it is enjoyable sex play.
But it gets even more serious when this young man meets a young German at the beginning of Hitler's career when he has like so many politicians do mesmerized the youth into believing all his wartime propaganda. We do see bias and prejudice practiced against the Germans who are on a roll trying to take over the European nations. The Czechs practice outright animosity against the Germans who at this stage are seen as victims more than victors. So our young waiter befriends a beautiful young German girl who is taken in by Hitler's dreams and promises, and is able to marry only a man suitable for the reproduction of the Aryan race...This is probably (next to the money) the most interesting and amusing scene to see how the Germans changed a hotel from a female only swimming group to a German infested male only group. What this man has to go through in German experimentation regarding reproduction is probably more than most Americans can take, but it is funny to watch German men give up their semen in a vial so that the women can be implanted to produce a master race...Our young waiter has to endure this to marry his German bride who is so enamored with Adolph that she imagines that she is making love to Hitler while her waiter friend is cementing their marriage. She stares at Hitler's picture on their Honeymoon. However, it is her face that is changed into Hitler's. Luckily for him, she is recruited into the army and has to go off to do her duty to country while he stays behind tending to the hotel business. She comes home and as his businessman friend has warned him that the only commodity worth keeping during the war is stamps, she brings home stamps that deported Jews have left behind in their homes. (This is a real insider tip to me personally and I will mention the name that came to mind here...Feinstein...insider stamps.) So he becomes a millionaire at least as his dream has been to own his own hotel and have his own business. When he finally achieves his goal, having sold his stamps, making him a millionaire, he decides instead of putting the money on the carpet to use it to paper his walls. While congratulating himself on his great achievement, the new regime of people's government comes in to let him know that he is not a millionaire, but that the people are taking over, and it is the people's property...(communist) so he spends the next fifteen years of his life in jail for having acquired 15 million dollars.
This is a not subtle movie. It clearly shows the way people lived during the prewar era in Europe, Prague, specificially, and how important class and money is to all people. Money is the driver of this film, and clearly it is sexist as male/female roles were well defined in that time period. There is only one marriage in this film, and all the male/female scenes are of prostitutes who are gorgeous and very well treated for these women know how to use their charms well. (My mother always told me that all women sit on the same box...it is just how they use it.) These gals use their charms (tits and ass) very well thank you. And it is attractive and alluring so we know why Heidi Fleiss went into business having many women who long to be like the women in this film...hand fed and protected and adored by their clients...gotta love the Czechs for knowing how to make a woman feel good.
The reason I love this movie so much is that it does show the way money is valued, is cheapened, and is finally a cause for punishment. There was a time when it was illegal to be a millionaire in the old Soviet Union. To watch this European nation go from capitalism to fascism to communism is a fun romp that makes one think...I liked it for that...plus, it does prove that my belief that your term in Hell is as big as your bank account, I guess I believe in either mind reading, eavesdropping, or serindipty! HA!
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