The Ruling Class

When the thirteenth Earl of Gurney dies in a bizarre accident the title passes to his son. The new earl, Jack, has spent years in an asylum and believes he is Jesus: he loves everyone, judges nobody, and says he knows he is praying to himself. The family is appalled. To save the title and the money they want first an heir out of him and then a cure. The film's move is that the cure works. Jack stops believing he is Jesus and becomes someone else instead. This time the family is delighted, because the new version speaks their language exactly. All of its politics sit in that one change. Peter Medak directed, from Peter Barnes's play, adapted by Barnes himself. Peter O'Toole plays Jack and was nominated for an Academy Award for it. The tone keeps sliding: black comedy, musical numbers, theatrical monologues, and finally an outright horror film. That instability is both the film's signature and its flaw. The sequence in the House of Lords is one of the most quoted pieces of satire in British cinema. Who it is for: anyone who likes British black humour, stage adaptations and O'Toole playing at the extremes. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a consistent genre. It runs close to two and a half hours, the manner changes constantly, and the late turn loses some viewers entirely.