A Jolly Bad Fellow (1964)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Don Chaffey

Writer:

Robert Hamer (writer)

Release Date:

28 June 1965 (Sweden)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

An English professor decides that there are too many useless people in the world and invents a gas that will kill them off. But first they'll at least have a good laugh. |

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Cast

Leo McKern	...	Prof. Bowles-Ottery
Janet Munro	...	Delia Brooks
Maxine Audley	...	Clarinda Bowles-Ottery
Duncan Macrae	...	Dr. Brass
Dennis Price	...	Prof. Hughes
Miles Malleson	...	Dr. Woolley
Leonard Rossiter	...	Dr. Fisher
Alan Wheatley	...	Epicene
Patricia Jessel	...	Mrs. Pugh-Smith
Dinsdale Landen	...	Fred
George Benson	...	Insp. Butts
Mark Dignam	...	The Master
Jerome Willis	...	Armstrong
Ralph Michael	...	Supt. Rastleigh
Mervyn Johns	...	Willie Pugh-Smith

Also Known As:

They All Died Laughing (USA)

Runtime:

USA:94 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:15 | UK:A

Company:

Pax Films

Trivia:

'Alan Wheatley' replaced Geoffrey Bayldon.

"A Curious Hybrid"

"A Jolly Bad Fellow" follows the exploits of a cynical middle-aged don (Leo McKern) at an Oxbridge-like university. A scientist, with a cold-bloodedly rationalist outlook, he is at odds with his other dons, a collection of fusty classicists who view him as an interloper. An accidental discovery by his dim-witted lab assistant (Dinsdale Landen) provides him with the means to neutralise those who stand in the way of the academic preferment he seeks. His long-suffering but loving wife (Maxine Audley) tries to overlook his philanderings, not least his liaison with a pretty young female research assistant (Janet Munro).

The film is a curious hybrid. Made at the very start of the swinging 60s, it is nevertheless reminiscent of the earlier Ealing films, of which it is a late example, not least "Kind Hearts and Coronets". There are, however, fleeting contemporary references (to Cliff Richard - a few months later it would have been The Beatles), and Janet Munro, in an adulterous seaside assignation, looks every inch the proto-dolly bird as she strolls along the sea-front, arm-in-arm with her ageing lover.

With a distinguished supporting cast that includes Dennis Price (as an especially pompous fellow academic), "A Jolly Bad Fellow" is at once an amusing and disturbing black comedy. Fans of John Barry will enjoy the superb soundtrack, featuring Alan Haven on organ, which stylistically prefigures that of "The Knack".