radish
The Force is Strong With This One
This movie at first seems to be a comedy, with some incongruous musical scenes that mislead the viewer into thinking it is pure silliness, if they didn't already choke on the irreverent treatment of the church.
The blurb on the video package says, "Peter O'Toole stars as the unbalanced 14th Earl of Gurney, a man who believes himself to be Jesus Christ. His psychiatrist describes him as a paranoic schizophrenic, the rest of his family call him just plain crazy. But they can't commit him because he has no heir. So a plot is hatched to marry the Earl off, have him produce a child and then send him to the loony bin for life. Reality and fantasy blend into a satirical mixture of laughter and drama in this irreverent comedy. Filled with boisterously funny characters and crazy ideas, The Ruling Class exemplifies society's attitude toward unorthodox behavior."
But the blurb turns out to be an understatement. The "drama" is actually high tragedy, and "society's attitude toward unorthodox behavior" is a pathology that leads to everyone's ruin. Unfortunately for the family, and for the society, the Earl evades their plot by "curing" himself and becoming what we might call a model psychopath, turning their codes and false morals against them, and what started as a comedy ends as a terrifying demonstration of the evil at the heart of the establishment.
The blurb on the video package says, "Peter O'Toole stars as the unbalanced 14th Earl of Gurney, a man who believes himself to be Jesus Christ. His psychiatrist describes him as a paranoic schizophrenic, the rest of his family call him just plain crazy. But they can't commit him because he has no heir. So a plot is hatched to marry the Earl off, have him produce a child and then send him to the loony bin for life. Reality and fantasy blend into a satirical mixture of laughter and drama in this irreverent comedy. Filled with boisterously funny characters and crazy ideas, The Ruling Class exemplifies society's attitude toward unorthodox behavior."
But the blurb turns out to be an understatement. The "drama" is actually high tragedy, and "society's attitude toward unorthodox behavior" is a pathology that leads to everyone's ruin. Unfortunately for the family, and for the society, the Earl evades their plot by "curing" himself and becoming what we might call a model psychopath, turning their codes and false morals against them, and what started as a comedy ends as a terrifying demonstration of the evil at the heart of the establishment.