The Ruling Class (1972)

The isn't actually a very good film, I felt - but it is does feature an extraordinary performance from Peter O'Toole as the "Earl of Gurney", about to take his seat in the house of Lords after his father has an untimely accident involving a noose and a tutu. His family are horrified at the prospect. Why? Well, that's because the new peer happens to believe he is Jesus. He spends much of his day contemplating or sleeping erect on his cruciform ornament in the great hall whilst the remainder of his rather eccentric family, and their boozy butter "Tucker" (Arthur Lowe) go about their business. They decide the only way to deal with him is to marry him off, beget an heir, then parcel him off to the asylum so they can resume their ordinary lives... What's probably most notable about this very theatrical black comedy is that it deals with just about everything from religion to vivisection, blasphemy (for many) to insinuendo (that's insidious innuendo in case you didn't know) and almost certainly would not be made now, 50 years on - being about as politically incorrect as it conceivable to be. British cinema always seems to take rather dim view of the church when it comes to comedy, and here Alastair Sim nobly continues with that tradition; Lowe is super as the butler - who's inherited £30,00 from the deceased so is in clover (when he is sober) and the two performances from William Mervyn and Coral Browne as his principal protagonists are amusing as their dastardly scheme takes shape. Sadly, though, it's all way too intense a pace to sustain, and despite the Oscar-nominated efforts of the star, the story begins to run out of steam quite quickly and the joke to wear a bit thin. There is nothing at all subtle about the humour and after a while I just stopped laughing. It is a beautifully shot film, the former Astor residence of Cliveden providing the setting for the ancestral family home, and the score from John Cameron mixes the original with just about everything from sea shanty fo high opera to ably support this preposterous swipe at the class system. It is too long, indeed it is far too long, but at times it shows creative British film making at it's most innovative and amusing and fans of O'Toole will probably appreciate (as would he, I suspect) the wedding scenes near the end... Fun, but over-stretched.