Rating: 3/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 34/52 | Alan Arkin’s Top 10
Nosey Barbon rides his bicycle to H.M. Prison Wormwood Scrubs. He greets Gulley Jimson, who just exited prison after a one-month sentence. Nosey has seen Jimson’s paintings and wants to be a painter himself. Jimson tries to tell Nosey to fuck off, even going so far as to ring the door and ask the prison to let him back in. But the prison is done with Jimson and wouldn’t let him back in if he tried. So, Jimson tricks Nosey into buying him a pack of cigs while Jimson steals Nosey’s bike and rides away.
Jimson calls his sponsor, Mr. Hickson, the very act that landed him in prison in the first place by calling a few too many times. He calls, as different characters, trying to extort Hickson for more money. Hickson catches on immediately and has the police trace the call to a red telephone box. Because Hickson is merciful, he won’t press charges. So, Jimson thinks of another strategy.
Alec Guinness wrote the screenplay, based on an Irish novel of the same name, with the hopes of playing the lead. By this point in his career, he had secured a reputation as a brilliant actor. This reputation led to director Ronald Neame giving Guinness little to no direction, and it shows. Guinness labors through each scene with his put-upon gruff voice and eccentric demeanor.
I’m not saying the movie isn’t funny, only that it goes to great lengths to arrive there and only occasionally. The film hits on something I felt while in art school: to be an artist is, in one way or another, to be an extortionist. You cannot merely create something—somebody must buy it, and the artist’s character sells the art just as much as the art itself.
I appreciate the film’s intentions and always enjoy Guinness—even his worst performance still has its charm. However, unless you are nostalgic for a particular style of British humor, I’d say skip this one.