Michael Bryant

The Ruling Class

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Peter O'Toole hanging off a cross

I remember watching The Ruling Class on TV as a kid and being amused by the sight of Peter O’Toole hanging off a full-size cross in a baronial living room, playing an aristo convinced he is the second coming of Jesus Christ. I also remember being bored by the rest of the film. Fast forward some decades to last week and I had the same experience all over again. On paper it sounds like a great idea. Get O’Toole at his most flamboyant to play a lunatic who inherits the ancestral seat of the earldom of Gurney after his father dies in a bizarre accident involving a noose and a ballerina’s tutu. And … Read more

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly

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Vanessa Howard as Girly

Having shot everything from 1960’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to David Lynch’s A Straight Story, it’s no surprise that Freddie Francis is best known as a cinematographer, one of the greats. But he also has more than 30 director credits to his name. Much of it was gun for hire work but in 1970, after eight years of doing others’ directorial bidding, he was finally given his head. Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (aka Girly) is his picture, done his way, co-conceived with writer Brian Comport, and shot at Oakley Court, a location he’d worked at many times on various Hammer horror productions when it was mostly used for its imposing exterior. … Read more