Butley (1974)

Director:

Harold Pinter

Writers:

Simon Gray (play)
Simon Gray (screenplay)

Release Date:

April 1976 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

His wife just left him for another man. And so did his boy friend.

Plot:

An English professor finds his life crumbling around him. |

Plot Keywords:

Professor | One Day | Book | Tutorial | Canteen

Cast

Alan Bates	...	Ben Butley
Jessica Tandy	...	Edna Shaft
Richard O'Callaghan	...	Joey Keyston
Susan Engel	...	Anne Butley
Michael Byrne	...	Reg Nuttall
Georgina Hale	...	Miss Heasman
Simon Rouse	...	Mr. Gardner
John Savident	...	James
Oliver Maguire	...	Train Passenger
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Darien Angadi	...	Male Student
Colin Haigh	...	Male Student
Lindsay Ingram	...	Female Student
Patti Love	...	Female Student
Belinda Low	...	Female Student
Derrick O'Connor	...	Irishman in pub
Susan Wooldridge	...	Female Student

Also Known As:

Simon Gray's Butley (Australia) (DVD box title)

Runtime:

USA:94 min | USA:129 min

Country:

UK | Canada | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 | Spain:18 | USA:R

Company:

Cinévision Ltée

Trivia:

The original Broadway production of "Butley" written by Simon Gray opened at the Morosco Theater in New York on October 31, 1972, ran for 135 performances and was nominated for the 1973 Tony Award for the Best Play. Alan Bates recreated his 1973 Tony Award winning performance Best Actor in Play in this filmed production based on the Simon Gray play and on the Simon Gray screenplay.

Quotes:

Ben Butley: You know how it exhausts me to teach books I haven't read.

10/10

A movie like this works as a small-setting exercise in actor virtuosity -- Bates grabs the individual words, twirls them around, and pitches them at his enemies with a high-pitched, womanly cackle -- and it works brilliantly on that level. But it also works on a larger level of a man who uses words as an evasive tool. Of course no one really talks like this, no one is this witty, but more than just entertaining dialogue (and some of it is very funny) the writing does serve an emotional purpose. Bates' performance, as a professor who avoids his contemporaries and who tries to dig into the mind of his young male lover, is incredibly good; it's like he's tap-dancing on top of himself with the exuberant joy of performance. And I loved the smart, youthful, innocent-patient tenderness in O' Callaghan's performance as the lover he shares an office with (where the majority of the film takes place).

Butley the man can't quite be explained, even though certain facets of his personality are obvious -- he's coated in irony, yet that can't hide his failings: he's jealous of the woman who's getting published while he's not, he can't stand students who just want to learn, and he's resentful of the man stealing his boyfriend from him. But yet he desperately goes chasing after people down the hall, just to get the last word in; he almost literally hangs off the doorknob while various characters come into his office; he screeches at the top of his lungs just to see if his leaving visitor will stop and come back. Butley does so often talk in the false hypothetical -- that type of grandstanding where he mentions something abstractly that specifically refers to someone -- that at times it's difficult to pinpoint who, exactly, he's referring to. (When he talks to Reg, the man stealing his boyfriend from him, does he use words like "queer" and "fairy" intending to mock himself to shock Reg, or to mock Reg in the guise of innocently questioning him?) While I didn't quite catch all the literary references -- just about the only drawback for me -- this is one of the most satisfying movies I've seen about the handling of a dying relationship. 10/10