Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6338 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-02-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 124 minutes

Synopsis
A sprawling, bursting-at-the-seams send-up of the in-grown eccentricities of the British upper class with Peter O'Toole as one of the least crazy of the English blue-bloods -- he thinks he's Jesus Christ. Academy Award Nominations: Best Actor--Peter O'Toole.

Customer Reviews

Dissapointing
Once again not the full version of the film. Full running time 154 mins. This version 126 mins. :(

Full of Sound and Fury ...... signifying bugger all.
Well.
I remember this when it first appeared in the theatre, and it was a sensation. How could the Establishment survive such a biting satirical onslaught ?
Survive it did, of course - and the play became a film, and this is what we have here: a stage play (and it is very stagey) shoved in front of a camera. Always a difficult one, and made more difficult by being a satire. Satire dates quickly. And this is VERY dated.

Never mind the excellent cast (another reviewer is quite right about their merits as actors, they are mostly superb - especially the smaller roles - the crown going to Alistair Sim's delicious loopy bishop) but the self-indulgent tosh they have to come out with frequently beggars description, and needs considerable resilience from the viewer.

Theatrical monologues of stupendous length are exactly that: theatrical. And that's where they should have stayed: in a theatre - though I doubt if a modern audience would put up with a lot of it.

On film, they are simply boring. So are the vocal pyrotechnics that Peter O'Toole is required to go through. Once is OK, twice is - well, twice, but three times is pushing it. And then we get it all again. And again.

The cardinal sin for me is that it's all too long and takes an eternity to do very little.

The script could easily have been cut by a third for the screen (and if you've got a version with dodgy timing, be grateful!) ...

Too many people shout too much, for too long. About not very much.

Peter Barnes may well have been hailed as a prophet among playwrights, but a kindly editor would have done him (and Peter O'Toole) an enormous favour.
Sit through half of this, and you're a better man than I am.

Running time - 2h 34m 03s
This new Optimum release is not a butchered version - it is the original and has full running time (at least mine does).

This is packed with actors giving some of their best performances, and saying that of people like Alastair Sim and Arthur Lowe gives you an idea of the quality on display.

The film is dominated by the genius of Peter O'Toole in an Oscar-nominated role (his company, Keep Films, also produced). He even gets to strut his stuff as a song and dance man.

If you are a fan of top-flight British character acting, and eccentric black humour, this is highly recommended.