The Ruling Class: A Review

THE RULING CLASS

There is a fine line between eccentricity and insanity. The Ruling Class, a vicious satire on the idle and entitled rich, gleefully crosses that line. Though cursed with a punishing runtime, The Ruling Class has a manic theatricality that mostly works.

The 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews) has accidentally committed suicide. He has hung himself, wearing a military jacket and a ballet tutu. His half-brother Sir Charles (William Mervyn), Sir Charles' wife Lady Claire (Coral Browne) and nephew Dinsdale (James Villiers) are none too pleased that the title, property and wealth of the Earl will not go them. Rather, it will go to Earl Gurney's sole living son, Jack (Peter O'Toole).

Jack is a figure who wants nothing but peace and love for all, and why not? After all, Jack is literally Jesus Christ, at least according to Jack. In full monk's robe and long hair, the new Earl of Gurney is utterly convinced that he is God Himself, down to having a large cross on which to sleep on at the manor. Sir Charles fumes, Lady Claire attempts to work with "J.C.", cousin Dinsdale is thoroughly confused and Lady' Claire's brother, Bishop Bertie Lampton (Alastair Sim) is befuddled. Only the Gurney's loyal but acerbic and openly Leftist butler Daniel "Tuck" Tucker (Arthur Lowe) tolerates and rolls with the Gurneys total lunacy.

Sir Charles is determined to get the title away from his bonkers nephew. The best way to do that is to have Jack sire a new heir to inherit everything, allowing Sir Charles to lock up Jack in an asylum. What better candidate for the new Countess of Gurney than Sir Charles' mistress, Grace Shelley (Carolyn Seymour). Grace is willing and even helps out Jack in convincing others that she is Marguerite Gauthier, better known as literature's Camille, the lady of the camellias.

A quick wedding ensues, but so do complications. Grace does become pregnant quickly, but she also falls in love with Jack. This does not bode well for Sir Charles' plans to have Jack locked up. Things are less helped by both the work of Dr. Herder (Michael Bryant), who had treated Jack secretly before his ascension to the earlship and whom Lady Claire seduces in exchange for him getting financial funding for his research. Things come to a head when Herder presents Jack with another god in the form of the AC/DC Christ, McKyle (Nigel Green). These two gods battle it out until the Electric God defeats the God of Love & Peace.

Jack is now able to say his name, but does "Jack" mean that the Earl has come to his senses? Or does it mean that the 14th Earl of Gurney, cousin to the Queen, now thinks he is Jack the Ripper? How will this go over in the House of Lords? Will Jack end up fulfilling his role as the Earl of Gurney or as the Ripper?

The Ruling Class runs a massive two-hours-and-thirty minutes. I figure that Peter Barnes, adapting his stage play, opted to either keep everything or possibly expand the story. To its credit, The Ruling Class' runtime only starts to feel exhausting once we get to Jack's apparent recovery. I wonder if, given the runtime, The Ruling Class could not have benefitted from having an intermission. I figure that the play had one, so inserting one in the film version might have given the audience a chance to rest and recover.

One certainly would have to rest and recover from Peter O'Toole's performance as "J.C.". He goes all-in on the cray-cray with total abandon, earning his fifth of an eventual eight Best Actor nominations. I am attempting to resist using the word "brave" to describe O'Toole's turn as Jack. However, he is totally committed into turning Jack into this paranoid schizophrenic whose wealth and position shields him from both reality and responsibility. As he begins courting his Marguerite by doing bird calls, you sit almost astonished that this is going on even in a fictional setting. In his rantings and apparent moments of sanity, in his intensity, in his mannerisms, O'Toole never holds back. 

He is more than ably supported by a group of actors who kept within the confines of the farce they were playing. Seymour's Grace is able to play the gold-digger who finds Jack eventually a good man worth protecting from his greedy family, even if he is a complete nutter. Mervyn's overtly pompous and blustery Sir Charles shows the character to be arrogant but probably the most logical even if he was horrid in his greed. Browne played Lady Claire as the more tactical of the two, playing along with her nephew's beliefs even if she knew them to be totally divorced from reality. There was an efficient coolness to her manner, even up to managing to tolerate her husband's mistress now being the mistress of the manor. Sim's befuddled Bishop and Villiers' nitwit cousin also kept to a balance of comical malevolence.

Lowe's Tucker, who had endured the Gurneys' totally loony behavior and antics, was also able to be openly antagonistic to this lot of ne'er do wells whom he had nothing but contempt for. He also was the first of a series of musical numbers that leave one astonished that they just pop out at random. I am highly reluctant to call The Ruling Class a musical. It certainly is not a musical as O'Toole's previous Best Actor Oscar nomination for Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Here, characters literally burst into song for no reason. Granted, Tucker's musical romp after being told that he will inherit 30,000 pounds is somewhat logical. How to explain, though, Jack just breaking out into Varsity Drag accompanied by two women who have come to ask him to speak to their annual church festival. More bizarre is that the women join him in the Varsity Drag.

That, however, is part of the nature of The Ruling Class. It has an anarchic manner where characters can say all sorts of outrageous things, break out into song, and have unhinged visions of the House of Lords as rotting corpses.

As a side note, O'Toole's singing did improve from Goodbye, Mr. Chips to The Ruling Class. 

The script is sharp and clever on all fronts. Jack blesses a snack to his cousin by stating, "For what I am about to receive, may I make myself truly thankful", in keeping with his ideas of being Jesus Christ. Even as he inches closer to an apparent sanity, Jack still makes his delusions logical to himself. Asked to state what he sees when seeing ink blots, Jack says with resignation, "Everything reminds me of Me".  

This wit is throughout the film. When Jack arrives to receive his title of Earl, Dinsdale states, "I'm completely in the fog". His perpetually angry father snaps, "When were you not?!". As Dr. Herber shows Lady Claire around his lab mice, he explains his experiments on them and adds, "Naturally, men aren't rats." With a mix of sarcasm and cool dismissiveness, she replies, "Only a man would say so". 

The Ruling Class has fantastic performances, the sometimes-over-the-top manner fitting to a movie about a dangerous psychopath of wealth and position. The runtime, the sometimes-crazed manner, will, I figure, put people off. However, on the whole The Ruling Class is a sharp, sometimes vicious and sometimes crazed takedown of those in the upper class and those who endure them. Be he Bert or Barnie Estwhistle or the Earl of Gurney, there is something for those willing to give The Ruling Class a chance. 

DECISION: B+