| A Jolly Bad Fellow | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Don Chaffey |
| Screenplay by | Robert Hamer Donald Taylor |
| Based on | Don Among the Dead Men 1952 novel by C. E. Vulliamy |
| Produced by | Donald Taylor |
| Starring | Leo McKern |
| Cinematography | Gerald Gibbs |
| Edited by | Peter Tanner |
| Music by | John Barry |
Production company | Pax Films |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
A Jolly Bad Fellow (US: They all Died Laughing) is a 1964 British black comedy film directed by Don Chaffey. It stars Leo McKern and Janet Munro.[1]
In the film, a university professor advances his career through habitually poisoning his colleagues at the university. When blackmailed by a female research assistant, he poisons her as well. But this time, he is unable to avoid police suspicion. While trying to escape, he is accidentally poisoned by his wife.
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Transcription
Plot
Kerris Bowles-Ottery is professor of science at the University of Ockham. To advance his career, he poisons inconvenient colleagues with an untraceable substance he has discovered that induces hysteria and manic behaviour followed by death. His research assistant, Delia, blackmails him into a promise of marriage, but he remains attached to his wife, and poisons Delia. When the police arrive at his home to question him, he flees in his car but fatally crashes it as a result of smoking a poisoned cigarette that his wife has unknowingly brought from his laboratory.[1]
Cast
- Leo McKern as Prof Bowles-Ottery
- Janet Munro as Delia Brooks
- Maxine Audley as Clarina Bowles-Ottery
- Duncan Macrae as Dr Brass
- Dennis Price as Prof Hughes
- Miles Malleson as Dr Woolley
- Mervyn Johns as Willie Pugh-Smith
- Mark Dignam as The Master
- Leonard Rossiter as Dr Fisher
- Alan Wheatley as Epicene
- Patricia Jessel as Mrs Pugh-Smith
- Dinsdale Landen as Fred
- George Benson as Inspector Butts.[1]
- Ralph Michael as Superintendent Rastleigh
- Jerome Willis as Detective Inspector Armstrong
- John Sharp as Hodges
- Wally Patch as Tom the Publican
- Judith Furse as Lady Davidson
Reception
In a 2017 study of Bryanston Films, Duncan Petrie writes that the film did not make "any impact either commercially or critically"[2] When the film was released in the US (under the title They All Died Laughing), The New York Times called it "nonconformist but not especially sidesplitting" although having "a deftly casual air about it as well as the polish of professionalism".[3]
References
- ^ a b c "A Jolly Bad Fellow (1964)", British Film Institute. Retrieved 30 April 2021
- ^ Petrie, Duncan James (2017). "Bryanston Films : An Experiment in Cooperative Independent Production and Distribution" (PDF). Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television: 12. ISSN 1465-3451.
- ^ "Comedy at the Coronet", The New York Times, 16 March 1964
External links
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This page was last edited on 26 February 2024, at 17:55