The Horse's Mouth (The Criterion Collection)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Mike Morgan, Renee Houston, Robert CooteBrand: GUINNESS,ALEC
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-06-04
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of The Horse's Mouth (The Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: masterpiece by the old master
Summary: 5 Stars
I bitterly regret that I completely missed seeing or even hearing about this movie until fifty years after it came out. All the movie critics and pundits I have listened to for all those years should hang their heads in shame. This movie belongs in every top twenty list and many top tens. I only found it by accident while browsing through my Netflix recommendations, but I am so glad I picked it.
I hope that Charlie Chaplin had a chance to see this movie while he was still alive because it has all the qualities that make for great slapstick. The hero bounces from one hilarious situation to another while spouting a mixture of witty sarcasm, profound wisdom, and general grumbling about the unfairness of the world. Only a great comic genius could have found a way to pack such a tremendous comic effect into the three words "let it go". This triggers the drop of a six foot cube of marble through the floor of the heroes borrowed studio (borrowed without the owners knowledge). This is quickly capped when the hero says that the people who live down there are in another country. The crazy sculptor who ordered the marble says, "That's okay then, I'll work down there.", throws his tools down the hole, grabs a ladder, and descends. He then spends the next six weeks carving the monstrous chunk of marble into a statue standing all of three feet tall. This sets us up for that wonderful effect of three people disappearing into a hole in the carpet, taking the carpet with them.
But, I think that only a comic of Chaplins caliber could have conceived the heroes final act of self-sacrifice, when to save others from guilt, he destroys his greatest masterpiece himself, then sails off down the Thames in a leaky old houseboat that is sure to sink before it reaches the sea. We are not too sad at this ending, because we know that there is no way that this crusty old curmudgeon is going to go down with the ship. He will find a way to survive and work even more havoc with the English art world.
It is interesting to know that only two people read the book and saw it as a movie. The first was Claude Raines. He showed the book to the director, who read some of it and said there was no movie in it. He later said the same thing to Alec Guiness, but Alec said, "you're absolutely wrong." and proceeded to write the screenplay. Thus we have both a master work of the comic actors trade, and a masterwork of screenwriting from the hand of the same genius, a feat worthy of the great Chaplin himself.
If you like Alec Guinness, you'll love this movie. If you love comedy, you'll love this movie. If you love Art, you'll want to watch this movie over and over. This is truly a great classic movie.
And, There's a bonus. The producers of this disc located and included the short film, Daybreak Express, which proceeded the movie in American theatres. This little piece, set to music of Duke Ellington, is a perfect little gem. Too short for a disc of its own, it's worth renting this disc in order to see it. The music alone is wonderful, but the way the director cut the film to match the music is a cinematic tour de force delightful to behold. considering the limited resources of the film maker, it's a minor miracle.
Summary of The Horse's Mouth (The Criterion Collection)
In Ronald Neame's film of Joyce Cary's classic novel, Alec Guinness transforms himself into one of cinema's most indelible comic figures: the lovably scruffy painter Gulley Jimson. As the ill-behaved Jimson searches for a perfect canvas, he determines to let nothing come between himself and the realization of his exalted vision. A perceptive examination of the struggle of artistic creation, The Horse's Mouth is also director Neame's comic masterpiece.Alec Guinness was in the full bloom of his stardom when he suggested, scripted, and starred in this wonderfully odd 1958 adaptation of Joyce Cary's novel. As Gulley Jimson, a gravel-voiced, antisocial painter, whose artistic drive is as single-minded (and as self-absorbed) as a terrier's, Guinness sketches one of his carefully constructed marvels. The film has a bumpily episodic structure, but when it works, it really works: Gulley inhabiting (and mostly destroying) a penthouse apartment when the upper-crusty owners go on holiday for six weeks, or marshaling an army of apprentices to create a masterpiece on a giant wall in a condemned building. Departing from the novel, Guinness concocted the movie's madcap ending, which is guaranteed to bring a smile. Adding verve is the music, adapted from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé, which fits Gulley like the paint under his dirty nails. The artworks, vivid and thick, are by John Bratby. --Robert Horton
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