David Warner has appeared in so many bad films and in so many peculiar roles over the last forty years, that it is hard to remember how remarkable and charistmatic an actor he was considered in the '60s; his Hamlet at Stratford-upon-Avon against Glenda Jackson is legend. This film was his first (and probably only) lead role and he plays here against Vanessa Redgrave in her effective film debut. Warner is a working-class artist obsessed with gorillas when high-tone wife Redgrave finally brings herself to divorce him. While it is apparent throughout that she has a definite soft spot for this revolutionary nutter, she decides that marrying Robert Stephens is the sensible thing to do. So Warner does all he can to upset the proposed union, and on his release from gaol (after sort of trying to blow up her mother), he dons a gorilla suit to disrupt the wedding. His Tarzan and King Kong fantasies try to show him the way, but nothing can prevent his ending up in the funny farm tending the flowerbeds into a hammer and sickle design, with Redgrave still involved in his fate, despite herself. With Irene Handl as his mum and Arthur Mullard and Bernard Bresslaw in important bit parts, this is a genuine British cult classic -- and a rare combination of words that is!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment