TotalTelly.co.uk
Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV
Loot
RRP: £15.99
Our Price: £2.90 (subject to change)
Narizzano's "Loot" is not Orton's "Loot"
Review date: 2008-11-18 Rating: 4 out of 10
"Loot" is a black farce which in the stage version is a heady mixture of brilliant deadpan, highly stylised dialogue and an ever-tightening thumbscrew of a plot. It is relentless, and the fact that it never allows the audience a moment to relax is what makes it increasingly and hysterically funny. It's one of those plays where the word hysterical is not a sloppy substitute for "jolly good", because the characters are frequently on the verge of hysteria. The plot is well-summarised in other reviews, so I won't go over it again.
Silvio Marizzano is one of those directors who doesn't trust his material, and would much rather Orton had written something different, simpler and shallower, so he tries to make it as much like a Carry-On film as possible. Narizzano and most of his cast are determined to nudge us repeatedly in the ribs about how funny it is, and they are. And the more he and they signal, the less funny it becomes. The most irritating, over-emphasised sequence is when Truscott of the Yard (sorry, Water Board) discovers the corpse's glass eye which has popped out for a breath of fresh air. It should be one double-take (can you have a single double-take?), but no we have to have hammering multiple camera angles, fiddly zooms, fish-eye lenses, and two minutes of visual nonsense. It is VERY boring.
All sense of pace is lost with a truly awful soundtrack by Richard Willing-Denton, who tries to write a "Ballad of Loot", an interminable narrative song which keeps telling us what we already know. As far as I can tell, Richard Willing-Denton never worked again, so maybe we should be grateful for small mercies.
Scriptwriters Galton and Simpson, though brilliant elsewhere, completely miss the Orton "ear" and by opening the play out lose all sense of the claustrophobia which give the comic threats reality in the play. A superfluous additional character, the only guest at the hotel, played by Dick Emery, doesn't help either.
Another problem with the film is that it can't decide whether the central relationship between the two "lads" (Hywel Bennett and Roy Holder) is gay or not. Orton, playing with his audience, hinted that it was, but Narizzano can't bring himself to follow it through, though he does throw in a gratuitous nude bank robbery. The 60s may have swung, but not that far.
Orton knew, as Feydeau and Oscar Wilde knew, that in order for the play to be funny, the characters have to be deadly serious. They have to believe something is at stake. Of the principals, only Milo O'Shea gives a performance which matches the material. Lee Remick and Richard Attenborough haven't the foggiest idea where they are or what they're doing. And not only the laughs are lost, but also the satire.
Such stars as it merits are earnt by what is left of Orton's dialogue, butchered almost as thoroughly as Orton was himself by his boyfriend at 28 Noel Road N1 on the night of 9th August 1967.
Similar Products
- Entertaining Mr Sloane [1969]
- If.... [1968]
- Britannia Hospital [1982]
- The Naked Civil Servant [1981]
- Up The Junction [1968]
Reviews
You bury the money...
Review date: 2008-08-15 Rating: 8 out of 10
One of the things I like about the screen adaptation of Joe Orton's stage play Loot (Silvio Narizzano, 1970) is that it is shot through with the sort of colourful pop sensibility that was probably only really possible in 1970.
Another interesting thing about the film is that it boasts at least as much - if not more - material by screenwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson as by Orton himself (who, to be fair, had been dead for over two years by the time the film was made). Galton and Simpson - as those of a British bent will know - are the well-regarded scriptwriters of such classic television comedies as Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son. So you would expect them to make a capable job of adapting Joe Orton's play for the screen.
There are other aspects of the production that I like. Hywel Bennett is excellent as Dennis - a role which he plays with the rogueish charm of an Artful Dodger. The other cast members are also good, although I did not quite see the point of Dick Emery's character, whom I found irritating.
The problem I have with Loot is that I am not sure if it is supposed to be a black farce, a comedy with elements of black farce, or a serious piece of work with elements of black farce and comedy. Confused? You should be...
The truth is, I feel, that Galton and Simpson are better comedy writers than Orton. But on the other hand I am not even sure that Loot is meant to be a comedy. Orton doesn't really write "gags". It's more like Beckett with added exuberance and elements of comedy and farce. And it is, of course, black - all of that scampering about with coffins and bodies and money. "All I ask is an hour or two of Burke and Hare." Now that is funny.
"You bury the money, and I'll bury your mum."
Although Orton himself wrote: "Loot is a serious play. Unless (it) is directed and acted seriously the play will fail. A director who imagines that the only object is to get a laugh is not for me." And this from a man who called his last play What the Butler Saw. You can't get more end-of-the-pier than that.
Make of it what you will. I enjoyed the film's frantic pace, the performances and its strictly 1970 pop sensibility.
So is it a period piece? And would it relate to today's youth? Hard to say. Even I had to watch it twice (and read a bit of Orton in-between) in order to get the full flavour.
The DVD version that I bought was as cheap as chips but sadly lacking in extras (there are none). Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased to have the film, but I know, for example, that Hywel Bennett and Roy Holder (the two male leads) are still with us, as are Galton and Simpson. It would have been nice (and relatively inexspensive, one would have thought) to have seen them now, being interviewed about the making of a film which nobody much seems to mention, but which I enjoyed...
Stylish black comedy farce
Review date: 2007-07-21 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is a slickly handled, stylish film version of the award winning Joe Orton play. If my memory's right, that would be the award used to bludgeon the unfortunate playwright to death, by his seriously envious boyfriend. The film is fast paced, wonderfully dark, and because it's an adaption of Orton's original script, it is funny, contemporary, and memorable. Orton was a very good dialogue writer, his language is fresh and of his day. You can hear all the passion and excitement of the 1960s in his script, which is lovingly adapted for screen by people dedicated to the craft they shared with their late 'brother'. I like this film very nearly as much as the first adaption of his work the previous year, Entertaining Mr. Sloane. If anything, it's even more stylish than the first film, and has more delicious satire in it, having a dig at many of the previously 'untouchable' subjects of the age, inc. marriage, money, and our mad lust for it, the Catholic faith, the police, and of course, death.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Hywel Bennett
Lee Remick
Roy Holder
Richard Attenborough
Milo O'Shea
Creators:
Lee Remick (Primary Contributor)
Richard Attenborough (Primary Contributor)
Austin Dempster (Cinematographer)
Martin Charles (Editor)
Arthur Lewis (Producer)
Alan Simpson (Writer)
Joe Orton (Writer)
Ray Galton (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: Cinema Club
Manufacturer: Cinema Club
EAN: 5014138300524
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, PAL,
Release date: 2005-06-20
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 98 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1972-02-04
Language: English (Original Language)