The Ruling Class@50: Peter O'Toole's satire finally comes of age

Peter Medak's adaptation of the Peter Barnes stage play The Ruling Class?was released on 13th September 1972.

The movie is a satirical depiction of the English Aristocracy, with all their delusions, hypocrisies and inbred insanity.

Plus ?a change, as the saying goes.?

"For what I am about to receive, may I make myself truly thankful"

Aside from O'Toole and his typically grandstanding performance as Jack, the 14th Earl of Gurney who suffers from the belief that he is Jesus, there are other members of the cast worthy of mention.

Arthur Lowe, who plays Marxist butler Tucker.?

"Yes, he's a nutcase. Most of these titled fleabags are. Rich nobs and privileged arseholes can afford to be bonkers. They're living in a dreamworld, aren't they, sir? Life's made too easy for 'em. They don't have to earn a livin', so they do just what they want to"

People seem to forget that the Dad's Army star had an interesting sideline in art house cinema.?

Really?

Witness Lowe's roles in motion pictures such as:If, O Lucky Man, Britannia Hospital, Theatre of Blood, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, The Bed Sitting Room?and Fragment of Fear.?

And prestige parts in mini-series including Brideshead Revisited and Richard Burton's Wagner?

"I'm the high-voltage Messiah, the electric Christ, the AC/DC god"

(Nigel Green as McKyle)

Also worth mentioning amongst a cast of British acting notables (including Harry Andrews, Graham Crowden, Michael Bryant, Alistair Sim, Coral Browne and O'Toole's boozing companion James Villiers*) is Zulu/Ipcress File star Nigel Green, who sadly was presumed to have taken his own life in the same year TRC was released.

Green was only 47, but looked at least a decade older. People seemed to age more rapidly in those days.

Green was also Hercules in Jason & The Argonauts (1963) - a friend's godfather (John Cairney) played the demi-deity's young 'chum' Hylas:

Cairney recalls in his autobiography, "Big Nigel looked down at me in my little belted white tunic and sandals, my hair newly curled with tongs and laughed: "I see they've picked a queer to play a queer."?

And after John's last day of shooting he writes: "I didn't care much if I never saw Nigel again, and I suppose the same held for him. You don't have to love everyone you work with."

Funnily enough Green and Cairney apparently ended up as firm friends.

Green essayed another peculiar character in John Huston's Cold War thriller The Kremlin Letter (1970) - 'The Whore', a panderer and drug pusher (pictured with Patrick O'Neal, full movie link below).

Cairney is 92 but apparently still going (comparatively) strong.

Fortunately for all you lucky people an excellent print of The Ruling Class is available free to watch on YouTube:

*James Villiers