King of Hearts (1966)

During World War I, Scottish soldier Private Plumpick is sent on a mission to a village in the French countryside to disarm a bomb set by the retreating German army. Plumpick encounters a strange town occupied by the former residents of the local psychiatric hospital who escaped after the villagers deserted. Assuming roles like Bishop, Duke, barber, and circus ringmaster, they warmly accept the visitor as their King of Hearts.

With his reconnaissance and bomb-defusing mission looming, Plumpick starts to prefer the acceptance of the insane locals over the insanity of the war raging outside.

"A surrealistic jewel of a comedy which you realize, when you can catch your breath between laughs, has made the case for the sanity of the lunatics and the madness of the war-waging sane." - Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times

It isn’t difficult to imagine the impact of a story like this on a Vietnam war-beleaguered nation—particularly in the college towns where the King of Hearts “cult” first took root. The “anti-psychiatry” of R.D. Laing (mirrored in both the novel and film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) was in the cultural air at the time, giving the asylum inmates’ delusions the spirit of a full-fledged social revolt. The Duke’s much-quoted line “Theater is everywhere” (Chapter 9) was a rallying cry to a generation whose notions of acting (and “acting-out”) ranged from the game-playing plays of Jean Genet (whose The Maids and The Balcony can be seen as sources of a sort for the film) to the organized anarchy of the Living Theater. Even those less politically or culturally au courant could take pleasure in the film, its action frequently taking the form of the sort of pageant common to campus “rush week” activities, holiday parties, or “spring break” gatherings. - David Ehrenstein, The Criterion Collection

Sonoma County Library card holders have access to the film here: https://www.kanopy.com/en/sonomalibrary/video/5724022