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Rating:  -
I have always told people that this is my favorite movie of all time - and I have seen a helluva lot of movies. That is all I need to say.
Rating:  -
The Pope IS Jewish.
It's a rather sad state of affairs that virtually every movie reviewed on Amazon with any fame or notoriety is reviewed as 'excellent', 'genius', 'brilliant', insert superlative, etc.
The fact is, and most of us know this, most of the movies sold here or anywhere are mediocre at best. If you don't believe me, just go look at the reviews for either version of the Poseidon Adventure.
However I can honestly say this movie is not a mediocre movie at all. It's truly terrible. One of the very worst movies I ever had the misfortune to view.
But let me take you through the typical critic-bait scenario, just in case you're unfamiliar with the plot...
This movie is brilliant. It's brilliant comedy. If you don't think so, it's because you're not smart enough. Movies that make fun of society are funny. Why? Because society is so corrupt/venal/hypocritical/ignorant(insert calumny here) that they deserve to be made fun of. Scorn and Mirth are the same thing, aren't they? If you like watching women adore the husbands who strangle them to death then you're in the club, if you don't it's because you're not smart enough. (Are you picking up on the pattern yet?) Anyway, every smart person knows that if you can point out how ridiculous the people you hate are, you don't need to bother further with things like plot, coherency, actual humor or for that matter (gasp) sobriety. This is the Seventies, after all.
Because you see we enjoy seeing madness, cruelty, death and sexual perversion without any rhyme or reason. Why? Because it's funny! It shows how idiotic people really are! What's that? What do you mean 'why not suggest a solution instead of mindlessly ridiculing people we think are inferior to us?' Don't you get it? It's a COMEDY! What's that you say? 'Comedy and Ridicule are not the same thing? Why not try to actually be funny?' You really don't get it do you..?
For the record, Peter O'Toole is my very favorite actor. The only reason I sat through this movie the one time was because of him. If society is really as stupid and pathetic as this brain-sludge of a script actually suggests, there's certainly no purpose in pointing it out, and if it isn't, well, maybe there are more constructive approaches to the problem of societies ills. As far as Peter goes, I'm quite certain based on his biography he wasn't sober at any time before, during or after the making of this movie. But that's the point. People might think this way when they're stoned or drunk. They might even enjoy watching it, or at least boasting that they've seen it and like it. But people who really honestly think society is this bad cold and sober don't make movies about it, they get a gun, go to a public place and kill as many people as they can, themselves included. So in the end I have to say, all critical criterion given its due, psychopathy is overrated.
Rating: -
Peter O' Toole's binge drinking (or occasional bouts of momentary sobriety) from the days when this film was made explains a lot about why he took on the role of a mad English Lord in the allegedly funny dark comedy The Ruling Class, although how Arthur Lowe was talked into coming aboard this brain-hurting turkey is a mystery.
In a nutshell, this perhaps one-time avant-garde movie from 1972 plays out like this... A fusty old nobleman, the thirteenth Earl of Gurney, played by Harry Andrews, is secretly an asphyxiphiliac who gets his jollies by having his manservant hang him (as in by the neck) from a bedpost every night, only to step in and rescue him just before he permanently blacks out. Well, the equally antique servant one night keels over of a heart attack right in the middle of one of His Lordship's bizarre and unfunny sessions of pleasure-via-strangulation, and the poor old chap dangles his way kicking and gasping to that great country house party in the sky.
Enter the Lord's heir, Jack, a certifiably insane Mod-ist with terrible fashion sense who goes through life under the delusion that he is none other than (gee, who didn't see this coming?) Jesus Christ incarnate. Scenes of loud, irritatingly madcap British "humor" pass and along the line the new Lord marries a stripper whose primary ambition is to have the salesgirls at Harrod's step-to for her now that she is a Lady. Meanwhile Lord Jack refuses to answer to anything other than "Jesus" or "JC" and the staff and family retainers are thrown into a tizzy. Various efforts are taken to cure the new Lord and make him an acceptable representative of the stogy old-line Tory Gurney family, and finally all seems well at the end when the Lord begins to answer to the name "Jack". Jack becomes a fire-breathing conservative complete with calls in his House of Lord's maiden speech for a return to capital punishment and the general exploitation of a rightfully downtrodden working class. Little do his peers know, however, that while cured of his delusions about being Jesus, the fourteenth Lord Gurney is not now answering to his own name of Jack, but he believes himself to that erroneously romanticized Victorian sexual misfit, Jack the Ripper. Yes, how hil-ar-i-ous, Lord Jack now a sexual murderer of women, uh-huh.
And that, Amazonians, is The Ruling Class for you, an agonizingly awful mislabeled classic.
Rating: -
What a relief anyway to note that at least ONE reviewer below can write, both to the point and grammatically correctly! OK, on to the actual movie.
I'm slightly disappointed, but unsurprised, I suppose, not to see the following interpretation included among the many. I saw The Ruling Class when it first came out in the UK. Of course the film took well-aimed pot shots at a variety of British institutions, but also asked subtler questions of all of us, such as "Shouldn't society review its approach to insanity?" (and in fact, society did) "Don't we pay mere lip-service to human kindness and fellowship, whilst deep-down we in fact respect only wealth and status, no matter how doubtfully gained?" (no change there unfortunately) "Shouldn't we scrutinise more carefully the risks of information without responsibility?" (a good one, that, and rather relevant to today, wouldn't you say?). From my point of view, upon the Earl's psychological conversion by his parasitic family from open-hearted innocent to... socially-presentable 'something else', their inadvertent creation became a metaphor for the beast in all of us. The beast let loose because of human ignorance, fear, and contempt. A caricature, sure, highly exaggerated, certainly, but horribly valid all the same.
Oh, and by the way, I was utterly floored that although others in the ensemble won deserved praise at the time, Peter O'Toole's bravura performance was to a very great extent under-appreciated. I doubt whether it rankles with him today. But anyway, my hat's off to you, Peter. Always will be.
Rating: -
This is a great film, one that polarises audiences even today. Some say it's outdated, that its targets (the stuffy upper class British snobs, the House of Lords, etc., etc.) are old news. Yet I feel that it hasn't dated at all, that we will always have these stuffy upper class bastards (whether they are British, American, French, or what have you) with us. Many have had problems with the mise-en-scene of the film, stating that it's too stagey because it's based on a play. I didn't find this at all. Peter Medak's direction is very good, and his compositions are quite good. I recently saw a film called Butley, which was based on a play and was really boring cinematically (but was well written and acted). This film doesn't feel like a filmed play at all. The performances are all top notch, especially O'Toole and Arthur Lowe as the butler. The film ranges from light farce to dark, dark humour. It has a very English air about it, and that may not sit well with many viewers. Much of English humour can be cruel, dark, heartless, and cynical, and this film has it in spades. It doesn't always translate well to American audiences (or other audiences). I think this film is an underrated masterpiece. I was very happy when Criterion released the full, truly uncut version. It was initially released in a 130 minute version, then later in an "uncut" 141 minute version (which obviously wasn't the full length version). This cut is. The film is a classic British farce played to perfection, a very rich film that can be viewed over and over again.
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