The Entertainer — Directed by Tony Richardson. A third-rate vaudevillian schemes to stay working. 96 minutes Black and White 1960.
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Why is Tony Richardson one of the greatest of all film directors? I can’t answer the question, but maybe you can. If you want to start, see The Entertainer. I saw it when it was first done on the stage. It was Olivier’s attempt to catch up with the kitchen sink drama that had taken over serious theatre in England, and John Osborne, who wrote Look Back In Anger, was the first of these rotters. So Olivier jumped off Richard III and into Osborne’s Archie Rice. He is much better on the screen in the part than he was on the stage; in the film you can see what a creation Archie is; you can actually get behind the character and begin to understand him. Archie’s a sleaze-bag, and he seems to have so little talent, you wonder that he lasted as long as he did. Son of a famous and gifted vaudevillian, Billie Rice, Archie tries one scam after another to keep at work. But the audience isn’t there, and the material isn’t there, and his son is a war prisoner, and his wife is a blabbering nag. Olivier was the most quick-witted actor, a quality that didn’t always serve him well, but certainly serves him here. You can see his Archie slippery slop, as he segues into one escape from the truth after another; you can see him thrust his dagger of defense this way and that, now using his musical hall patter to fend off attack, now using his own brand of cruelty, now using his patience, now using his charm. Everyone around him is excellent; virtually the entire cast from the stage version performs it, and they are deep and ripe in their roles. Joan Plowright is tops as the stand-by daughter; Brenda De Banzie is moving as Phoebie, the mother’ Roger Livesey is delightful as old Billie Rice, the vaudevillian. The screenplay is superb; it opens up the story into settings around the seaside resort where the old theatre is. This grounds the picture, and it also makes evident how brilliant Osborne’s writing is. The writing alone is worth the price of admission. But it is the imagination of the director, Tony Richardson, which holds it and offers it out to us, that makes it a love object. What was it that he had? What was his gift? Take a look at The Entertainer. See for yourself.
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