The Ruling Class (1972)

Directed by Peter Medak. Starring Peter O’Toole, Coral Browne, William Mervyn, Arthur Lowe, Carolyn Seymour, Alastair Sim, James Villiers, Michael Bryant, Harry Andrews, Graham Crowden, Nigel Green, Hugh Burden, Kay Walsh, Patsy Byrne. [PG]

Bizarre black comedy/satire is proof that irreverence can indeed be dry. Putting the “stiff” in stiff upper lip, the pic is set in the stuffy British aristocracy, surrounding its central figure with a parade of insidious blue bloods who can barely be bothered to open their eyelids all the way before sentencing condemnation on Jack, 14th Earl of Gurney (O’Toole). But then, since O’Toole portrays the heir to the House of Lords as a paranoid schizophrenic who believes that he is Jesus Christ, one can hardly blame them entirely. Overlong and meandering, clogged with too many minor characters and gloomy interludes, but the flamboyant lead performance is tops, and the doldrums are staved off on several occasions where characters break out in sudden song and dance, not to mention the development where O’Toole is finally “cured” by the “Electric Messiah”…only to believe that he’s now Jack the Ripper! Not for all tastes. Slapped with an X rating in the UK (despite having very little violence or nudity), yet it garnered a PG in the States—apparently, the Brits don’t like it when someone crumbles their upper crust and pokes fun at the God complex. Green’s final film role (performance, not release); he died shortly after production ended.

71/100