Humble estate agent’s clerk Jimmy Brewster (Alan Bates), determined to become a gentleman whatever the cost, asks sleazy ex-public schoolboy Charlie Prince (Denholm Elliott) to teach him social graces.
Scripted by Frederic Raphael, photographed by Nicolas Roeg and directed by Clive Donner, this has all the credentials to be one of the best British big-screen satires. There’s no denying it’s a very funny film, a sort of School for Scoundrels in a Room at the Top, but the brushstrokes are so broad that there is no room for the finer detail that would have made it a classic.
Bates is splendid as a working-class wannabe, but Denholm Elliott steals every scene as an indolent aristocrat who tutors him in the delicate art of being a cad.
Jimmy Brewster
Alan Bates
Charlie Prince
Denholm Elliott
Mr Horton
Harry Andrews
Ann Horton
Millicent Martin
Mrs March
Pauline Delany
Coates
Godfrey Quigley
Mrs Brewster
Alison Leggatt
Nadine
Lucinda Curtis
Ferris
Nigel Stock
Hugh
James Villiers
Gerry
William Rushton
Bernard Levin
Bernard Levin
Director
Clive Donner
