Cheap The Entertainer (DVD) (Laurence Olivier, Brenda De Banzie) (Tony Richardson) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of The Entertainer

Don't clap too loud, it's an old building
That line occurs in the play, I believe, but not in the film. Or did I miss it? In any case, it doesn't really matter, since this is a production where the brilliance of the writing is only matched by the brilliance of the performance. I defy anyone to watch this merciless analysis of national character, at a particular moment in British history, and remain unscathed. It is painfully true, and painfully ugly. The war had been won, but everything else was lost. At the time the play was written, it seemed that nothing remained, bar grimy exhaustion. By 1960, however, spirits were recovering. The work remains a historic document, recording the bleakest and most bitter hour. This is certainly one of the purest records ever committed to posterity, and anyone interested in knowing what things were like in Britain in the 1950s will find them here. An absolute masterpiece.

---

I know what you're thinking:
"Hmm -- a movie called *The Entertainer*, with a smiling Laurence Olivier on the DVD's cover. He looks like he wants to give us all a big hug. There are even chorus girls dancing behind him. This looks like fun!" -- Nope: it's one of the most depressing movies ever made. Well, there IS some fun to be had by watching Olivier totally INHABIT the character of Archie Rice: truly a case of the 20th Century's greatest actor playing one of the best roles in 20th Century drama. Let it be said at once that this is Olivier's best film performance, and never mind all those Shakespeares. (He thought so too, calling the role of Archie Rice his all-time favorite and the one he most closely related to.) The movie is based on the original stage play, written by the original Angry Young Man, the great playwright John Osborne. The superficial thing to say about *The Entertainer* is that Archie Rice symbolizes England itself after World War II. This story encapsulates like no other (including Osborne's earlier *Look Back in Anger*) that "British post-War malaise" you've heard so much about. Much like England in 1960, the man harbors illusions of grandeur based on a speciously "glorious" past. And like the country, Archie is in reality outdated, irrelevant, dingy, unpleasant, past his prime, desperate, pathetic -- in a phrase, he's very much like the sleazy seaside resort town wherein he plies his trade as a vaudevillian. And you can draw an easy parallel between Archie's attempts to keep his bankrupt show afloat with England's senseless, imperial involvement in Palestine at this time. (Or was it Suez? -- it's been a while since I've seen the movie. In any case, it was someplace where they no longer belonged.) But these exercises are for film theory class. The real stuff is in the creation of the wonderfully nasty character. Archie is a REAL character with depth, unique mannerisms and diction, and plausible motives. He has a history. He's believable. But as brilliantly as the character is written, it's Olivier who brings him to searing life. When Olivier delivers Archie's "goodnight" address at the end of the film, you know you're watching a high moment in cinema. Only a great actor with decades of experience could deliver these lines with such withering weight. Archie's divers failures are horrible, absurd, and total -- but Olivier is defiant. We find ourselves grudgingly admiring this rat-like defiance, because we love fighters. And great actors.

---

Laurence Olivier becomes a great character actor
"The Entertainer" is a pivotal film in the career of Laurence Olivier. Before this 1960 film he had been a handsome leading man, receiving Oscar nominations for his performances in "Wuthering Heights," "Rebecca," "The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with his Battell at Agincourt in France," "Hamlet" (for which he won," and "Richard III." After "The Entertainer" his nominations were all for character roles, beginning with Archie Rice in this film and then for "Othello" (performed in makeup as a Negro), "Sleuth," "Marathon Man," and "The Boys From Brazil." Performing the film adaptation of John Osborne's play, Olivier restaked his claim as the greatest actor of his generation by adding modern drama to his collection of work in Shakespeare and the classics.

Archie Rice is a bitter character, without any noticeable redeeming quality besides the attempt to survive. He is a comic whose routines are not funny, and perhaps once upon a time, in the early days, they were a put-on, playing a bitter person taking out his anger on the world. Either way, the act is for real now and is a p[itiful] figure. Archie works in a seedy music hall and has his eye on Shirley Anne Field (Tina Lapford), who must be a symbol of some sort of redemption besides simple carnal desire. Just as he ignores his audiences, Archie ignores his own family, who would provide an even more devastating critique of his wretched life. There is no sentimental side to Archie, who remains unflinchingly flawed unto the bitter end.

The film is directed by Tony Richardson, who had done Osborne's "Look Back in Anger" two years earlier and who would win his Oscar for "Tom Jones." However, "The Entertainer" is clearly representative of the "kitchen sink" style of film that characterized Britain's own "New Wave" cinema, which tended to focus on the growing decline in the quality of life in Britain after World War II. The cast features a young Alan Bates as son Frank, Albert Finney debuting as son Mick, and Joan Plowright as daughter Jean (within a year she would be the third and final wife of Olivier). Brenda de Banzie delivers a touching performance as Archie's wife, a bitter alcoholic, whose husband stopped loving her a long time ago. However, from start to finish the film is focused on Olivier's performance, which Olivier often said was the one of which he was most proud, being such a departure from his usual roles and work. You might not think it is Olivier's greatest performance, but it is one of his finest.