Great stuff Tony. This film is an unacknowledged classic. An Ealing comedy from hell. 'Morgan a suitable case for treatment' crossed with 'If' plus a little Hammer horror thrown in. Really surprised that this film has never come up for reappraisal. Arthur Low was amazing in this.
I think the problem it had is that it ripped into much revered British institutions in a way that was uncomfortably close to the truth. Easier to ignore than acknowledge. But these days if one were to take the time to listen to to the likes of Prince Andrew and Prince Harry speak then it's obvious how distanced from reality and supremely nuts they are. Harry's near messianic status (in his own head) as the saviour of those with mental health problems, for instance, and his gushing sentiments about working for the good or mankind are really not that far removed from O'Toole's "God of love" delusions. Meanwhile Charlie boy talks to plants. As the great Spike Milligan once sang: "I talk to the trees...that's why they put me away!" But not if you're rich and privileged enough to be classified eccentric rather than crazy. Thanks for commenting, Peter. T.
Peter Medak has been one of my favorite directors ever since I saw this one at one of the many revival houses of the seventies. Still recall how pissed off I was when "Jack" murdered Claire. Good catch, Sir!
@@tonybush555 If you haven't already done so, I bet you'd appreciate Romeo Is Bleeding. it's a great Lena Olin sex-bomb Russian assassin masterpiece. Cheerio!
Gonna have to give this a re-watch because, like you, I only caught it on TV back in the 70´s and only remember Carolyn Seymour for some reason. O´Toole is always mesmeric (funny how so many of the bad boys were) and Arthur Lowe is a national treasure blessed with comic genius. Funny story, my late Dad used to be a meter reader back in the day and he read Nigel Green´s meter who answered the door in just his blue Y Fronts apparently, always made me laugh.
I saw this movie in the mid-80's while I was in college. It had a theatrical re-release. I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of it, although Peter O' Toole is always a joy to watch. I'll have to give this one another look. Thanks Tony.
Another superb review with excellent context and epilogue (not sure if that right !?) to review of where the UK was & where it is now politically. Hoorah Henry's of the world always given a free pass-look at most of upperclass twits on gbnews all belong in prison but remind them of Eton too much As for the movie -i regret only seen once in early eighties and thought it bonkers So as it on RUclips watch tomorrow. Absolutely great review as always T. Take care
Redmond Barry of Ballybarry tried and failed to become part of the upper class - according to Thackeray. Mick Travis failed as well; he was NOT a lucky man.
I need to see this film. I have good things about this film. I am a fan of Peter Medak's work. Another film that deals with climbing the British class system is Ben Wheatley's High Rise.
The Ruling Class is one crazy, epic takedown. It's fascinating to currently watch as the new UK government, elected on the basis of it's working class everyman credentials, instantly immerses itself in a world of privilege, wealth and class-climbing aspiration. Immediate treachery and betrayal. Starmer may want to release the sausages, but it's the Filet Mignon he's really after. T.
When I first caught this one it was WTF did I just watch ! Now years later it feels like a drug fueled trip into the world of Monty Python taking a turn to visit to Black Adder and as you mention finishing up in a Hammer Horror film ! The final thought being "Damn, Peter O'Toole can read a phone book for me and make it sound like "Henry V" ! Then you add that great cast to support him and wow just wow WTF !
Always been curious on this one, being VERY into O'Toole, always was one I wasn't quite sure on, like either it was a flawless masterpiece I just wasn't ready for, or a very interesting failure (like you say, nobody is middle of the road on this). Don't got much to say on it besides what you said on the review (aside that I don't find it as prescient as you only because it fits much more the ruling class of the time, nobody in the current House of Lords full of titled plebs and middle-classers would be fine with Jack the Ripper Jack, our oppressive gents of today talk like progressives while having Dickensian economics, and Jack being like pronouns people because he is how he feels is a bit forced, but Tony being Tony you got to put the wokes in there somewhere, as I've said before I like your ideological curve balls, so as long as you keep throwing them I don't mind the wore out woke shtick), so I'll blabber on class a bit if you don't mind. I don't think you're wrong per se, but I guess there was a short window of time where things improved a little to a lot (sure, you can still dodge a cancer better and what not, but menial job wasn't ruining lungs at mines or hard physical work but number/brain crunching, most sh*ttier jobs got to the immigrants illegal or not, and more opportunities for going to university and what not), but after several years of the ruling class realising (realpolitik-ically) they should give a little (emphasis on "a little") or the plebs would get wrestless and turn anarcho-commie, they said "f*ck it!" and rolled back any measly progress, concentrated wealth on liberal industrial (or even pre-industrial) levels and realised they could get away with it by pretending to care on immigrants and saying amen to anarcho-commie causes while being more oppressive bosses than Henry Ford a century ago. «Things will have to change, so things stay the same», indeed. I also think your additions within and under the working class are also pretty correct both in the UK and most modernised economies today. I do wonder how Tony would view Richard Reeves' op-ed "Stop Pretending You're Not Rich" (on upper-middle class in the 21st century). There are of course nuances by country (depending how ethnic or not classes are divided, if there's a monarchy or republic and hence an aristocracy there, what exactly the economy lives in, whatever local nuances, etc.), as another commenter here signalled, Australia seems to only have poorer and richer "buggers" (I assume from it starting more like a Wild West where some struck it rich than a white colony where British aristocracy and remaining class system was fully transplanted), the US has rich people with a blue collar complex (the type that always claim they "self-made" and act like a caricature of crass plebs like a Trump who always refuses to admit he got a couple of millions from his father to start his stuff) and some working class who pretend they're middle class (and vice-versa I guess?), the thing I find most surprising about your report is the middle class as part of "them" thing, especially in light of the HUGE backsliding on wealth division in the last couple of decades in the west and the abrupt slow down of the little progress that was starting in developing countries, but in most places I find it that people either just see the middles as just slightly better off plebs, or plebs with a complex, or something like what is called "middleman minority" (kind of like Jewish people or "model ethnic minorities", in that they get prejudiced against while they got many windows to rise and mingle with the uppers and their oppression is not like like diaspora blacks' or oppressed indigenous peoples), but I guess this might be a British thing or a (Southern) Welsh thing. Having had experiences with the Portuguese and British class system I see they got more in common than you'd think with the lack of monarchs and official aristocracy (being a citizen called "subject" by convention to a democratic monarch or citizen to a democratic republic is not as different terminology aside as republican Brits think), I'd say the most accute difference is the middle class is more viewed like Jews and Moorish traders were centuries ago and as Asian shop owners are now, and that the Brits at least seem to care on the ethnicity (both towards immigrant descendants and the indigenous ethnic groups), having some "sure, they're filth, but at least they're English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern-Irish unlike that Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/insert group not yours" while the Portuguese upper class seem to one-up them by acting like they're a whole other ethnic group who colonised the place to civilise the indigenous and they are more like north-central Europeans or something, and some have some complex that they are more commoners then they are (that might be a republic thing, like the US do), and the upper class is subdivided in "well-off kids" (a bit ruined post-monarchy gents), "muffins" (recent generation-wise fortune wanabee gent) and the "beties" (after common "posh" names" for boys and girls and boing being Bertie or Elizabet, the sons of plebs who got lucky and got enormous complexes over their family roots and lack of manners but they got money, so oh well). I guess being lower-middle class with a lower class risen middle background (faster on one family side than another) and with plenty of relatives on the upper-middle gives me some perspective on this nonsense. Anyhow, sorry for the bore, take care and "hear" you again soon, Tony.
That’s some comment. I’ll respond with "some" brevity as time is short. Yes, agreed, the anachronistic House Of Lords of today is a ghost of the mostly purely hereditary consistency it once was. And it would not embrace Jack The Ripper nor Adolph Hitler, rather someone espousing a different type of ideological fascism that is no less damaging or oppressive than howling for corporal and capital punishment. This alternative type is dressed up as manners, beneficence and humanitarianism, less obvious, but equally as controlling. That essence of superiority and bombastic self-righteousness still drives. I did find it resonant that what Jack feels or believes is, as his psychiatrist puts it, is. The notion of feelings over facts. Back then considered symptomatic of mental ill-being, psychotic delusion, nowadays the shining cornerstone of identity politics. Whether you feel you’re a cat, dog, rabbit or God, that’s what you are. Naturally, specific to the individual themselves because the facts are still the facts. Aren’t they? Although nowadays we are expected to deny the factual and agree, support, and any suggestion that we don’t or hold an opposing perspective will not be treated tolerantly. Perhaps it’s progressive in that such factors are no longer merely the exclusive preserve of the privileged but have cascaded downwards to apply to all of society. Historically, because the film is a historical artifact, it is very much of it’s time. The class system in the UK is much more fluid but there is still a glass ceiling, a boundary that cannot be breached. It still levels out at the point of aristocracy and royalty which is only truly accessible by birthright. I grew up in a working-class environment, one of miners, steelworkers, labourers. When you voted, you voted Labour. If they stuck a red rosette on a donkey, that’s what you voted for. Anything other and you were a traitor to your class. It was serious stuff, believe me. I got up every morning and went to work, worked for thirty-six years in jobs I hated, but if you were working class, that’s what you did. Went to work, got treated like shit, went home, got paid. Now although my eventual lifestyle was very lower middle class - you know, house, mortgage, two cars, two kids, yearly holiday in Majorca, etc, if asked I would always claim to be working class. Because I had to work and didn’t like it much. Never brought me any personal sense of fulfilment. So, although there was greater social mobility and a blurring of distinction between working, middle and upper middle class, I stayed in my lane. Psychologically speaking. But now we have the working poor and the underclass, at least the working class have someone to feel superior to. We were always the bottom of the barrel before that. Amazing how society progresses. Or regresses. However, it’s the working and middle classes collectively that support the existence of the classes below them and those above. I think there should be another sector above upper-middle class and below the ruling class (a nominal term only these days, they don’t really rule). The Political Class, accommodating politicians, industrialists, entrepreneurs, billionaires, etc. Truth is the working and middle-classes are the most ill-treated, abused and over-burdened sectors under any government. They are expected to do all the work for the least return and benefit to maintain and support the existence of all the other classes. You know when people say things like: “I worked all my life with nothing to show for it?” There’s always something to show for it, that’s just self-pitying exaggeration in most cases. What is probably truer is: “I worked all my life, and every successive government wants to take away what I’ve worked for. Or at the very least, make it harder to hang on to.” The last thing they’re going to do is offer you any help. But that’s just my take on it. Thanks for your extensive comment, Vitor. Interesting read. T.
Salt of the earth! Or so say those grubby urchins the Rolling Stones! You'll not find the likes of those fellas in art college, I can tell you! Cheers!
![Hunxho - Ball Forever [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nki9ZTF9Uls/mqdefault.jpg)
Great stuff Tony. This film is an unacknowledged classic. An Ealing comedy from hell. 'Morgan a suitable case for treatment' crossed with 'If' plus a little Hammer horror thrown in. Really surprised that this film has never come up for reappraisal. Arthur Low was amazing in this.
I think the problem it had is that it ripped into much revered British institutions in a way that was uncomfortably close to the truth. Easier to ignore than acknowledge. But these days if one were to take the time to listen to to the likes of Prince Andrew and Prince Harry speak then it's obvious how distanced from reality and supremely nuts they are. Harry's near messianic status (in his own head) as the saviour of those with mental health problems, for instance, and his gushing sentiments about working for the good or mankind are really not that far removed from O'Toole's "God of love" delusions. Meanwhile Charlie boy talks to plants. As the great Spike Milligan once sang: "I talk to the trees...that's why they put me away!" But not if you're rich and privileged enough to be classified eccentric rather than crazy. Thanks for commenting, Peter. T.
Peter Medak has been one of my favorite directors ever since I saw this one at one of the many revival houses of the seventies. Still recall how pissed off I was when "Jack" murdered Claire. Good catch, Sir!
Thank you. Appreciated. T
@@tonybush555 If you haven't already done so, I bet you'd appreciate Romeo Is Bleeding. it's a great Lena Olin sex-bomb Russian assassin masterpiece. Cheerio!
Cheers to the Working Class..who keep the lights on and the water flowing 🍺🍺🍺🍺
Seconded! T.
Great reminder of a oft forgotten beauty, sorry Tony the ferrets are running late this week😉
Completely understand, Compo. Thanks for commenting. T.
A truly great film I reckon.
You are probably not wrong. T.
Gonna have to give this a re-watch because, like you, I only caught it on TV back in the 70´s and only remember Carolyn Seymour for some reason. O´Toole is always mesmeric (funny how so many of the bad boys were) and Arthur Lowe is a national treasure blessed with comic genius. Funny story, my late Dad used to be a meter reader back in the day and he read Nigel Green´s meter who answered the door in just his blue Y Fronts apparently, always made me laugh.
Thanks, Moose. Carolyn Seymour stood out for me also, or I stood out for her. Great anecdote also. T.
I saw this movie in the mid-80's while I was in college. It had a theatrical re-release. I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of it, although Peter O' Toole is always a joy to watch. I'll have to give this one another look. Thanks Tony.
If you do give it another spin, let me know how you get on, Larry. Cheers. T.
Another superb review with excellent context and epilogue (not sure if that right !?) to review of where the UK was & where it is now politically.
Hoorah Henry's of the world always given a free pass-look at most of upperclass twits on gbnews all belong in prison but remind them of Eton too much
As for the movie -i regret only seen once in early eighties and thought it bonkers
So as it on RUclips watch tomorrow.
Absolutely great review as always T. Take care
Wow, thanks, Graeme. As always, very much appreciated. T.
The first 5 minutes of this video is your greatest moment yet😂
Thank you for saying so, aureiilio33. Appreciated. T.
Redmond Barry of Ballybarry tried and failed to become part of the upper class - according to Thackeray. Mick Travis failed as well; he was NOT a lucky man.
As Kubrick and Anderson sought to illustrate. T.
Thanks!🍷
Thank you for your generosity, oilergreg. Very much appreciated. T.
I need to see this film. I have good things about this film. I am a fan of Peter Medak's work.
Another film that deals with climbing the British class system is Ben Wheatley's High Rise.
The Ruling Class is one crazy, epic takedown. It's fascinating to currently watch as the new UK government, elected on the basis of it's working class everyman credentials, instantly immerses itself in a world of privilege, wealth and class-climbing aspiration. Immediate treachery and betrayal. Starmer may want to release the sausages, but it's the Filet Mignon he's really after. T.
@@tonybush555release the sausages I mean hostages I mean where’s my wife’s free designer clothes ..
Since your on a Peter Medak kick, have you seen and considered reviewing his film Romeo Is Bleeding?
It's on my list and I will hopefully get around to it before I'm done. T.
When I first caught this one it was WTF did I just watch ! Now years later it feels like a drug fueled trip into the world of Monty Python taking a turn to visit to Black Adder and as you mention finishing up in a Hammer Horror film ! The final thought being "Damn, Peter O'Toole can read a phone book for me and make it sound like "Henry V" ! Then you add that great cast to support him and wow just wow WTF !
@@keithbrown8490 sounds like the general experience, Keith. T.
love it when the punchline of a joke is literally just "trans people lol"
10 out of 5 stars mate. Tears in my eyes, back of the net.
Joke?
Always been curious on this one, being VERY into O'Toole, always was one I wasn't quite sure on, like either it was a flawless masterpiece I just wasn't ready for, or a very interesting failure (like you say, nobody is middle of the road on this). Don't got much to say on it besides what you said on the review (aside that I don't find it as prescient as you only because it fits much more the ruling class of the time, nobody in the current House of Lords full of titled plebs and middle-classers would be fine with Jack the Ripper Jack, our oppressive gents of today talk like progressives while having Dickensian economics, and Jack being like pronouns people because he is how he feels is a bit forced, but Tony being Tony you got to put the wokes in there somewhere, as I've said before I like your ideological curve balls, so as long as you keep throwing them I don't mind the wore out woke shtick), so I'll blabber on class a bit if you don't mind.
I don't think you're wrong per se, but I guess there was a short window of time where things improved a little to a lot (sure, you can still dodge a cancer better and what not, but menial job wasn't ruining lungs at mines or hard physical work but number/brain crunching, most sh*ttier jobs got to the immigrants illegal or not, and more opportunities for going to university and what not), but after several years of the ruling class realising (realpolitik-ically) they should give a little (emphasis on "a little") or the plebs would get wrestless and turn anarcho-commie, they said "f*ck it!" and rolled back any measly progress, concentrated wealth on liberal industrial (or even pre-industrial) levels and realised they could get away with it by pretending to care on immigrants and saying amen to anarcho-commie causes while being more oppressive bosses than Henry Ford a century ago. «Things will have to change, so things stay the same», indeed. I also think your additions within and under the working class are also pretty correct both in the UK and most modernised economies today. I do wonder how Tony would view Richard Reeves' op-ed "Stop Pretending You're Not Rich" (on upper-middle class in the 21st century).
There are of course nuances by country (depending how ethnic or not classes are divided, if there's a monarchy or republic and hence an aristocracy there, what exactly the economy lives in, whatever local nuances, etc.), as another commenter here signalled, Australia seems to only have poorer and richer "buggers" (I assume from it starting more like a Wild West where some struck it rich than a white colony where British aristocracy and remaining class system was fully transplanted), the US has rich people with a blue collar complex (the type that always claim they "self-made" and act like a caricature of crass plebs like a Trump who always refuses to admit he got a couple of millions from his father to start his stuff) and some working class who pretend they're middle class (and vice-versa I guess?), the thing I find most surprising about your report is the middle class as part of "them" thing, especially in light of the HUGE backsliding on wealth division in the last couple of decades in the west and the abrupt slow down of the little progress that was starting in developing countries, but in most places I find it that people either just see the middles as just slightly better off plebs, or plebs with a complex, or something like what is called "middleman minority" (kind of like Jewish people or "model ethnic minorities", in that they get prejudiced against while they got many windows to rise and mingle with the uppers and their oppression is not like like diaspora blacks' or oppressed indigenous peoples), but I guess this might be a British thing or a (Southern) Welsh thing. Having had experiences with the Portuguese and British class system I see they got more in common than you'd think with the lack of monarchs and official aristocracy (being a citizen called "subject" by convention to a democratic monarch or citizen to a democratic republic is not as different terminology aside as republican Brits think), I'd say the most accute difference is the middle class is more viewed like Jews and Moorish traders were centuries ago and as Asian shop owners are now, and that the Brits at least seem to care on the ethnicity (both towards immigrant descendants and the indigenous ethnic groups), having some "sure, they're filth, but at least they're English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern-Irish unlike that Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/insert group not yours" while the Portuguese upper class seem to one-up them by acting like they're a whole other ethnic group who colonised the place to civilise the indigenous and they are more like north-central Europeans or something, and some have some complex that they are more commoners then they are (that might be a republic thing, like the US do), and the upper class is subdivided in "well-off kids" (a bit ruined post-monarchy gents), "muffins" (recent generation-wise fortune wanabee gent) and the "beties" (after common "posh" names" for boys and girls and boing being Bertie or Elizabet, the sons of plebs who got lucky and got enormous complexes over their family roots and lack of manners but they got money, so oh well). I guess being lower-middle class with a lower class risen middle background (faster on one family side than another) and with plenty of relatives on the upper-middle gives me some perspective on this nonsense. Anyhow, sorry for the bore, take care and "hear" you again soon, Tony.
That’s some comment. I’ll respond with "some" brevity as time is short.
Yes, agreed, the anachronistic House Of Lords of today is a ghost of the mostly purely hereditary consistency it once was. And it would not embrace Jack The Ripper nor Adolph Hitler, rather someone espousing a different type of ideological fascism that is no less damaging or oppressive than howling for corporal and capital punishment. This alternative type is dressed up as manners, beneficence and humanitarianism, less obvious, but equally as controlling. That essence of superiority and bombastic self-righteousness still drives.
I did find it resonant that what Jack feels or believes is, as his psychiatrist puts it, is. The notion of feelings over facts. Back then considered symptomatic of mental ill-being, psychotic delusion, nowadays the shining cornerstone of identity politics. Whether you feel you’re a cat, dog, rabbit or God, that’s what you are. Naturally, specific to the individual themselves because the facts are still the facts. Aren’t they? Although nowadays we are expected to deny the factual and agree, support, and any suggestion that we don’t or hold an opposing perspective will not be treated tolerantly. Perhaps it’s progressive in that such factors are no longer merely the exclusive preserve of the privileged but have cascaded downwards to apply to all of society.
Historically, because the film is a historical artifact, it is very much of it’s time. The class system in the UK is much more fluid but there is still a glass ceiling, a boundary that cannot be breached. It still levels out at the point of aristocracy and royalty which is only truly accessible by birthright. I grew up in a working-class environment, one of miners, steelworkers, labourers. When you voted, you voted Labour. If they stuck a red rosette on a donkey, that’s what you voted for. Anything other and you were a traitor to your class. It was serious stuff, believe me. I got up every morning and went to work, worked for thirty-six years in jobs I hated, but if you were working class, that’s what you did. Went to work, got treated like shit, went home, got paid. Now although my eventual lifestyle was very lower middle class - you know, house, mortgage, two cars, two kids, yearly holiday in Majorca, etc, if asked I would always claim to be working class. Because I had to work and didn’t like it much. Never brought me any personal sense of fulfilment. So, although there was greater social mobility and a blurring of distinction between working, middle and upper middle class, I stayed in my lane. Psychologically speaking. But now we have the working poor and the underclass, at least the working class have someone to feel superior to. We were always the bottom of the barrel before that. Amazing how society progresses. Or regresses.
However, it’s the working and middle classes collectively that support the existence of the classes below them and those above. I think there should be another sector above upper-middle class and below the ruling class (a nominal term only these days, they don’t really rule). The Political Class, accommodating politicians, industrialists, entrepreneurs, billionaires, etc. Truth is the working and middle-classes are the most ill-treated, abused and over-burdened sectors under any government. They are expected to do all the work for the least return and benefit to maintain and support the existence of all the other classes. You know when people say things like: “I worked all my life with nothing to show for it?” There’s always something to show for it, that’s just self-pitying exaggeration in most cases. What is probably truer is: “I worked all my life, and every successive government wants to take away what I’ve worked for. Or at the very least, make it harder to hang on to.” The last thing they’re going to do is offer you any help. But that’s just my take on it.
Thanks for your extensive comment, Vitor. Interesting read. T.
Salt of the earth! Or so say those grubby urchins the Rolling Stones! You'll not find the likes of those fellas in art college, I can tell you! Cheers!
Appreciate your analysis of our crumbling country.🫡
Like the song says: "Things can only get better..." Errr...right...yeah...
@@tonybush555 hope over reality🤞😊
@@bronte333 What's life without a little hope? T.
@@tonybush555 indeedy.😊