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The rich joke is derived from Cukor's A Double Life, and hinges on the realization that Shakespeare's catalogue of murders is fuller than Peckinpah's. Vincent Price is Dr. Phibes at first, then Olivier in Sleuth gradually—bad notices push the thespian over the edge, vengeance follows on the circle of snobby scribes who dared to award the Best Actor statuette to somebody else. "That's a bit melodramatic, isn't it?" Kael, Simon, Reed et. al were unavailable, thus a gaggle of Britain's sagging stalwarts pop up to be eviscerated in the ways of the Bard. Dennis Price provides a link to the macabre Ealing serenity of Kind Hearts and Coronets, getting his tweet suit skewered by Achilles' lance. Michael Hordern receives the orgiastic stabbing from Julius Caesar, Robert Coote takes the Richard III wine dip. The difference between adaptation and interpretation is taught to Harry Andrews, who's lured by a pair of go-go boots to a subterranean production of The Merchant of Venice, Shylock at last gets his pound of flesh. Jack Hawkins meanwhile learns the weight of performance by helplessly embodying Othello with a towel-wrapped Diana Dors. "Occupational hazards" in the war of hams and wags, orchestrated by Douglas Hickox with Elizabethan jangling and judicious wide-angle lenses. Henry VI for Coral Browne (Joan of Arc blistered under the salon hair dryer), Titus Andronicus for Robert Morley (twin poodles in the gourmet's ultimate dish). As the villain's dutiful daughter, Diana Rigg mans the stage lights and is never more fetching than in shaggy hippie drag. It's Price's picture, though, a campy eye-roll at blood spurts that builds to a roaring Lear fire. The capping jest has the final reviewer unimpressed still. "Another critical miscalculation on your part, dear boy." With Ian Hendry, Milo O'Shea, Arthur Lowe, Eric Sykes, and Madeline Smith.
--- Fernando F. Croce |