Product Description

The mysterious Michael Rimmer (Peter Cook) appears at a small advertising agency and soon takes over from the hapless employees, including the bumbling Pumer (John Cleese,) skiving boss Ferrett (arthur Lowe, Dad's Army) and sexy secretary Tanya (valerie Leon, Carry On). Rimmer rises through the ranks of the agency, creating saucy marketing campaigns for graham Chapman, before turning the firm into a successful polling compnay and moving into politics. With chicanery, manipulation, and relentless opinion polls, the Machiavellian Rimmer becomes MP for Budleigh Moor and acquires a trophy wife before rapidly working his way up, with charismatic deception, to even greater heights.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19291 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-06-25
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Synopsis
Ambitious, single-minded, and ruthless: Michael Rimmer (Peter Cook) has all the necessary qualities to succeed in business. He’s a smooth operator, unafraid of using his wiles to get what he wants. Setting his sights on a small advertising agency, he moves in for the kill and before long, he’s running the show, creating saucy marketing campaigns and moving the firm into the political arena. And if he has to step on a few people on his way to the top, so be it. Machiavelli was a pushover by comparison!

Review
The timing could hardly be better. In the week that Tony Blair steps down, after 10 years in 10 Downing Street, the film that foresaw his PR-friendly style of government is finally released on DVD. The story of a slick and soulless spin doctor who becomes the people's prime minister, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer is a cinematic rarity - an intelligent and though-provoking satire. --William Cook, The Guardian Guide

Review
This post-Bedazzled vehicle for Peter Cook, written by Cleese and Chapman, satirises politics by showing an opinion pollster's (Cook) unscrupulous rise to Prime Minister. Modelled on David Frost (who, unaware of that, produced the film), Rimmer's soullessness may presciently glimpse the Mandelsons to come. The fun lies in spotting the character actors whom Rimmer chews up along the way. --Uncut Magazine

Customer Reviews

"I'm Shocked And Bewildered, Gerald!"
A sorely overlooked film, the link between the Ealing comedies (Man In The White Suit and The Lady Killers especially) and Lindsay Anderson's monumental O Lucky Man! This is a staggeringly prescient film on the machinations of spin politics. Peter Cook plays the title role absolutely straight, like Peter Sellers did in Heavens Above, leaving it to comic stalwarts like Arthur Lowe, Dennis Price, John Cleese, Harold Pinter and the like to amuse. For an incredible insight into The Rise And Rise Of Michael Rimmer, there's a fascinating chapter about it in the book How Very Interesting: Peter Cook's Universe And All That Surrounds It. Happily, this is the full length cut of the film and not the trimmed version that was very occasionally shown on TV at around 3 in the morning. Rimmer is the satirical forefather of The Thick Of It.

The great lost Peter Cook movie
This was the film that was supposed to make PC a proper bona-fide film star. All the elements were in place - a script from John Cleese and Graham Chapman, a stellar cast of British acting talent, major studio support from Warners, and even David Frost as Exec Producer.
Cook himself looks great - really rather handsome, and although his acting style was on the arch side, he got away with with because the character he was playing was such a smoke-and-mirrors PR fraud (Alastair Campbell must've seen it...).
However, it all went wrong. It was such an audacious, accurate satire of the machinations behind a political party scheming its way to power, that it was deemed politically too sensitive to release in the midst of the 1970 general election. It eventually got a modest release, but the moment had passed, and so had Cook's stab at movie fame. Dudley did slightly better a few years later...
That said, it's great. Chillingly predicting the annexing of party politics by spin, image and grasping PR chancers, "Rimmer" is a joy, and even an education.

A classic Peter Cook film.
Great to see this film have a DVD release.I too remember seeing it maybe three times in the seventies on TV at some godforsaken hour before it disappeared for nearly thirty years.

Its more relevant today than it was then. This is a must-see.
Oh, and its pretty funny too!