The late David Warner is the impish title character in this odd British black comedy, a man child fascinated with Karl Marx and zoo animals desperate to keep his estranged wife (Vanessa Redgrave) from divorcing him to marry Robert Stephens. Warner basically stalks her, placing a skeleton next to her in bed, then hangs around as she prepares to take a bath. For some reason, she seems to like him being around, and after she returns from a date with Stephens, Warner chases him off then gets his ex-wife to be in bed. Not really a mature couple, either of them, and for Morgan, it's his distaste for a changing world that has made him act the way he does, enabled by his working class mother (Irene Handle) and his wife.
Although Warner plays the title character, it's Redgrave who got the acclaim, nominated for an Oscar the same year as her sister Lynn. Warner would go on to play mostly villains (most memorably in "Titanic"), and he's not exactly likeable here. Loveable, yes, though because how can you resist his child like mentality? Redgrave's character, however, manages to get more depth, and Warner gets to overhear what she really thinks of him, much like Heathcliff did with Cathy in "Wuthering Heights". It's through these conversations that Redgrave reveals who her oddball character is, and of course, she's fascinating.
The film however is rather a bit of culture shock, with the motion picture industry changing greatly in the mid 60's, with even the British washboard dramas becoming more stylistic, in a way that would be dated within just a few years. This film then is more successful as a time capsule, and it's not going to appeal to everyone. Bizarre cutaways and sudden silent movie like sped up film aren't always successful as story telling methods. Warner seems to be emulating Stan Laurel at times. But I did giggle a few times at his antics, even though I'd find his character exhausting and Redgrave's to be irritatingly indecisive and enabling when he needed a good kick to wake up from this arrested development.
Although Warner plays the title character, it's Redgrave who got the acclaim, nominated for an Oscar the same year as her sister Lynn. Warner would go on to play mostly villains (most memorably in "Titanic"), and he's not exactly likeable here. Loveable, yes, though because how can you resist his child like mentality? Redgrave's character, however, manages to get more depth, and Warner gets to overhear what she really thinks of him, much like Heathcliff did with Cathy in "Wuthering Heights". It's through these conversations that Redgrave reveals who her oddball character is, and of course, she's fascinating.
The film however is rather a bit of culture shock, with the motion picture industry changing greatly in the mid 60's, with even the British washboard dramas becoming more stylistic, in a way that would be dated within just a few years. This film then is more successful as a time capsule, and it's not going to appeal to everyone. Bizarre cutaways and sudden silent movie like sped up film aren't always successful as story telling methods. Warner seems to be emulating Stan Laurel at times. But I did giggle a few times at his antics, even though I'd find his character exhausting and Redgrave's to be irritatingly indecisive and enabling when he needed a good kick to wake up from this arrested development.