Written by Frederic Raphael, based on a short story by Stanley Ellin. In order to get on, Alan Bates enlists the help of fallen blue blood Denholm Elliott (with Saint Jack one of his best performances) but ultimately succumbs to murder. The frequent uses of ' he/she'll have to go' don't prepare you for what actually ensues. It's thoroughly funny and properly bitter about upper class twattishness. The irony is that Bates cannot help but become one of the types he detests.
We noticed a moment when Bates and Millicent Martin are in bed and she says something that isn't in the audio. Martin also sings the theme song.
Some of Fergus McDonnell's editing is quite loose.
Photographed by Nic Roeg with some slightly ragged camera operating by Alex Thomson. I don't know if it's just me but there's something very modern about the way this is shot:
Commonplace now but not in 1963 when it was filmed?
Lovely cast: Harry Andrews, Pauline Delaney (the landlady, also Young Cassidy), Godfrey Quigley (property developer). Alison Leggatt, Nigel Stock, James Villiers, William Rushton.
Loved Elliott draining his hip flask with the line "We're all out of lighter fuel".
And "You seem a bit metholated".
Martin on seeing giant country pile "How did you know my size?"
And "Possibly the worst play I've seen since last Thursday".
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