Movie Review The Entertainer

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1960 – Spoiler alerts A gritty British social realism drama of the Angry Young Men school of kitchen sink dramas. Playwright John Osbourne was asked directly by Lawrence Olivier to create a play for him, and the stage version of this story was the result. The film was co-written by Osbourne and Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale. The film, featuring Olivier, his future wife Joan Plowright, Thora Hird, Albert Finney, and Charles Grey, among others, is one of the most memorable ever, with Archie Rice being one of Olivier’s greatest performances. Archie Rice is a fading music hall comedian, reduced to playing end of the pier shows in a crumbling seaside town (the film was mostly shot in Morecambe). Rice is in severe debt, spending wildly despite being bankrupt, a heavy drinker and utterly selfish. He keeps promising his co-performers that he will pay them, despite playing to a half empty theatre, and he thrives on his former glories. The tax man and police and other creditors could descend upon him at any time. His family are afraid to answer the front door from this fear. (We never actually see the creditors). Rice’s family is falling apart round him, which he fails to see. His son is away fighting in the Suez (the Suez Crisis in 1956 is used in the film as the final collapse of the British Empire, which Rice’s fate echoes). Though married to a heavy drinker, Rice seduces a losing contestant from a beauty contest he compered, as she is wealthy and promises to bank-roll his next show, but Rice’s father tell her family his true intentions and that Archie is married, drawing the plans to an end. Rice’s father, himself a retired music hall star, tries to come out of retirement to help his son out, only to die of a heart attack right before going on stage. The son fighting in the Suez is killed in action. The family gets a chance to move to Canada for a new start in life, but unable to admit defeat, Archie Rice refuses to go with them. The film ends with him performing again to a mostly empty auditorium, and it is obvious that his debts are going to consume him. The echoes of crumbling Empire are clear, a man and country unable to accept progress over tradition. We see rock & roll guitarists waiting in the wings but never getting past the old music hall vaudeville performer to take to the stage. Archie ignores the reports on the worsening war that his son is about to be destroyed by, and offered a last minute bail out (the Canadian opportunity), he, like Britain, declines in favour of isolationism. Bleak and miserable, with a stunning central performance by Olivier. Arthur Chappell