01
O Lucky Man!
Why this pick
Its sprawling, caustic British satire shares The Ruling Class’s theatrical energy, sudden musical intrusions, and gleefully grotesque view of institutions and class power.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1972 2h 34m GBR
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
The Ruling Class
ComedyDrama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved The Ruling Class, try these.
01
02
The Devils
Why this pick
Ken Russell matches the film’s flamboyant sacrilegious charge, pitched performances, and furious attack on repression, authority, and respectable hypocrisy.
03
The Hospital
Why this pick
A savage, unstable institutional satire with a manic central performance and a darkly comic sense that sanity and social authority are inseparable.
04
if....
Why this pick
Its rebellious assault on British hierarchy carries a similarly heightened, confrontational tone, blending deadpan satire with surreal ruptures and mounting rage.
05
The Bed Sitting Room
Why this pick
This absurdist British apocalypse has the same taste for deranged aristocrats, institutional collapse, and comedy pushed so far into madness that it becomes unsettling.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
Following the death from accidental asphyxiation of Ralph Gurney, the 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews), Jack Gurney (Peter O'Toole) becomes the 14th Earl of Gurney. Jack, a paranoid schizophrenia, thinks he is Jesus Christ and shocks his family and friends with his talk of returning to the world to bring it love and charity, not to mention his penchant for breaking out into song and dance routines and sleeping upright on a cross. When faced with unpalatable facts (such as his identity as the 14th Earl), Jack puts them in his "galvanized pressure cooker" and they disappear. His unscrupulous uncle, Sir Charles (William Mervyn), marries him to his mistress, Grace (Carolyn Seymour), in hopes of producing an heir and putting his nephew in an institution; the plan fails, however, when Grace falls in love with Jack. Jack gains another ally in Sir Charles' wife, Lady Claire (Coral Browne), who hates her husband and befriends Jack just to spite him. She also begins sleeping with Jack's psychiatrist, Dr. Herder (Michael Bryant (actor)), to persuade him to cure Jack quickly.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Alastair Sim
Bishop Bertie Lampton
Arthur Lowe
Daniel Tucker
Coral Browne
Lady Claire Gurney
Michael Bryant
Dr. Herder
Hugh Burden
Matthew Peake
Cyril Appleton
McKyle's Assistant
James Hazeldine
Fraser
Harry Andrews
Ralph Gurney - 13th Earl of Gurney