by Miguel E. Rodriguez
DIRECTOR: Peter Medak
CAST: Peter O’Toole, Alastair Sim, William Mervyn, Carolyn Seymour, Arthur Lowe
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 77% Fresh
PLOT: A member of the British House of Lords dies, leaving his estate to his son. Unfortunately, his son thinks he is the one true God made flesh. Murder and mayhem ensue.
Re-watching The Ruling Class for the first time in some fifteen years, I came up with a great but still imperfect way to describe it: Being There directed by Terry Jones and written by Terry Gilliam. It has more religious blasphemy than Life of Brian – not a great example because Life of Brian is not technically blasphemous, but whatever – and more exuberant overacting than any two Nicolas Cage movies put together. There’s nudity (but no sex), a little cross-dressing, murder, auto-erotic asphyxiation, impromptu musical numbers, and more jabs at organized religion and class structure than you can poke a burning cross at. It feels a little too chaotic for its own good at times, but I am willing to forgive those transgressions because I am so grateful for its periodic flights of fancy and for the deliciously hammy performance from Peter O’Toole. Is it a masterpiece? Not quite. But you just can’t turn away from it.
One day, the veddy-veddy proper 13th Earl of Gurney dies after a mishap involving a silken noose, a tutu, and a dislodged stepladder. His brother, Sir Charles Gurney, is dismayed to learn that the heir to the Gurney fortune and name is none other than Jack (Peter O’Toole), the 14th Earl of Gurney. We see the reason for Charles’s dismay when we see Jack for the first time…dressed as Jesus Christ, in a brown robe and white rope belt and long golden locks down to his shoulders. He tells everyone he is God. Someone asks him, “How do you know you’re God?” He answers with unassailable logic: “Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.” He also says things like, “For what I am about to receive, may I make myself truly thankful.”
Charles realizes he must have Jack committed to wrest away control of the family fortune, but he cannot do so until Jack has an heir. But Jack (who insists on being referred to as “J.C.”) refuses to marry because he says he’s already married to the Lady of the Camellias, which everyone knows is the name of a less-famous novel by Alexandre Dumas fils. To get around this inconvenience, Charles arranges for his own mistress to impersonate the Lady. Meanwhile, Charles’s wife, Lady Claire, puts the moves on Jack’s psychiatric doctor to distract him because he opposes the marriage, citing Jack’s condition. And always in the background is Tuck, the family butler, who received 30,000 pounds from the 13th Earl’s will, but stays in service apparently just to blow raspberries and say exactly what’s been on his mind for the last several years. I would say he’s the comic relief, but he’s more like a demented court jester.
Peter O’Toole’s performance as Jack must be seen to be believed. Imagine, say, Daniel Day Lewis or a young Robert De Niro, dressing up as Jesus Christ, talking animatedly to flowers, and taking a nap while standing on a life-size crucifix, arms outstretched. At one point, Jack woos the faux Camille by impersonating a bird, and she follows suit. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Peter O’Toole dressed in an impeccable white ensemble, strutting across the lawn, head bobbing like an oversize pigeon, and literally cooing.
The Ruling Class is clearly a jab at its namesake, the upper-class nobs and snobs of England who firmly believe they rule their country simply because they are more suited to it than anyone else. They never suffer from the same human foibles as the lower classes do, and if they do, it’s never acknowledged, or acknowledged and hushed up, or blamed on someone or something else. The film is based on a stage play, which explains the occasional fourth-wall breaks and the frequent interruptions for short musical numbers, which further enhances the Python-esque feel of the movie. I would imagine it was much more notorious upon its release than it might be today, but the message itself hasn’t dated.
That message is especially brought home when Jack is ostensibly cured, after a fantastic sequence involving a second psychotic patient, a lightning storm, and a vision of a gorilla wearing a top-hat and a tux. However, his “cure” has an unintended side effect. To everyone else, it looks like he’s back to being himself: Jack, the 14th Earl of Gurney. But a creepy monologue in the attic reveals his secret. He no longer believes he’s God, nor does he believe he’s Jack, the 14th Earl. He believes he’s another historical “Jack,” the one who stalked prostitutes in 19th-century London. He has visions of old London streets. In one masterful scene, he is in the sitting room of his country house, and as he crosses the floor, the house magically transforms into an old London cobblestone street at night, in an uncut take with no visual effects. I can imagine Terry Gilliam nodding approvingly at that absurdist touch.
What will become of the “new” Jack? Will he remain a member of the ruling class to which he was born, whether he deserves it or not? Will his former doctor, or his wife, ever learn of Jack’s new persona? With his newfound purpose, he delivers a speech to the house of lords in favor of capital punishment, quoting no fewer than three verses from the Old Testament. Their response to his words serves as the macabre capper to the film.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 