The Horse's Mouth

This is probably my favorite movie. It may be overstatement to call a mere British comedy a timeless classic, but this outstanding movie, beneath its raucously madcap surface, has some very serious things to say about what it means to be an artist, to be driven by visions while living in a society that doesn't care. I think Guinness is the greatest actor of the century, and that his performance here as the maddening, irascible, impossible Gulley Jimson is the zenith of his movie roles. Kay Walsh, who partnered with Sir Alec in Tunes of Glory, is equally brilliant. Having said that, I recently read Joyce Cary's novel, on which the movie is based, and I have to say that the book is much darker than the movie, which plays up the darkly comic scenes of the novel while diminishing - or even omitting - some of the darker moments. Still, the movie stands well on its own, even if it is a somewhat different entity than the book.

source: The Horse's Mouth

Alec Guinness wrote the screenplay. Already an actor of great repute, in doing so he was in a very dominating position. The film gives the impression of a much less collaborative affair - writer/director/star - than is usual, or successful. Very hard for director to question a portrayal when the star can truthfully say that he knows the character far better than does the director. Guinness chose a deep croaky voice. He consequently lost all musicality - most obviously when he sings but throughout his voice is an inexpressive monotone. The dialogue lacks sparkle further dulled by his monotone. There is a problem in any case of portraying a talented but inarticulate artist - how do you indicate talent or even genius? Apparently based on the writer Dylan Thomas, whose drunkenness was companionable (Richard Burton once a companion?), there was no doubt wit in their conversation. Here the painter is mainly rascally, the paintings shown don't particularly impress either intrinsically or by the way they are treated. All that is left is the implication that for someone so badly behaved yet to still be sought after, must have a great deal of talent. The film fails to show people being won over by his pictures and forgive his trespasses - that's a failure of direction. Given the great talents involved, it is less than it could have been. But given these talents, it should not in anyway be patronised. Even great artists get it wrong sometimes, it doesn't affect their greatness or my admiration.

Gulley Jimson (Alec Guinness) is an eccentric, vulgar, misanthropic amateur painter who is struggling to make ends meat. When he divorced his wife (Renee Houston), she took all of his paintings to settle a debt. His former patron, A.W. Alabaster (Arthur Macrae), won't return his calls (to be fair, most of them are vulgar and threatening). Gulley finds a patron in Sir William Beeder (Robert Coote), who commissions him to make a wall mural. Aided by a cast of silly characters - his coarse but loving mistress Dee Coker (Kay Walsh), an obnoxious sculptor (Michael Gough), an air-headed model (Gillian Vaughan) and Nosey (Mike Morgan), a naive admirer of his - Gulley struggles to fulfill his artistic desires in spite of everything. "The Horse's Mouth" presents Alec Guinness at the pinnacle of his career. Having built up a career as a star through the early films of David Lean and the quirky, immensely popular Ealing comedies, Guinness had become an international superstar after his Oscar-winning role in Bridge on the River Kwai. Guinness produced, co-wrote, and starred in this film, one of his finest achievements. Attempting to write a plot summary was hard work. Like many if not most great comedies, the plot is secondary to the characters, particularly Gulley. "The Horse's Mouth" continues the anarchic spirit of Guinness's Ealing films, building on and arguably surpasses it. Like Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot, Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean, and other comic figures, Gulley bumbles from one situation to another; however, it is not clumsiness which produces this (for the most part), but deliberate design. Gulley flaunts societal rules and weasels his way into high society, taking advantage of societal politeness to get what he wants. Unlike most such characters, however, he has a goal - to create art. It makes him short-sighted, narrow-minded, and arrogant - as he realizes in a brief moment of clarity - but that hardly matters to him. Even when Gulley becomes recognized for his work towards the end, he remains unsatisfied. Whether Gulley is a great artist is not the point (and he's pretty obviously not) - it's something he has to do, and he'll do much anything to express himself. Alec Guinness shows his full talent as an actor and comedian here. His biggest asset as an actor is his anonymity - he can play any character, regardless of class, position, personality, time period, even race and gender. Witness his eight-way performance in "Kind Hearts and Coronets", his demented Professor Marcus ("The Ladykillers"), the mild-mannered criminal Holland ("Lavender Hill Mob"), the naive idealist Sidney Stratton ("Man in the White Suit"). And that's just his Ealing films. Guinness is an amazing actor, able to alter his appearance, voice, and the most subtle of mannerisms to create a whole new persona. Not only is Guinness a great actor, but also a fabulous comedian - able to use his abilities to create unforgettably amusing characters. Gulley Jimson is a fascinating character. Not every actor could have pulled it off, but Guinness does it brilliantly. Guinness makes full use of his abilities - the raspy voice, which he alters at appropriate moments, his gestures and movements, which range from broad slapstick flailing to subtle facial and hand gestures. The supporting cast is good, particularly Kay Walsh at her Cockney best and Michael Gough's obnoxious sculptor - but it's Alec's show the whole way. "The Horse's Mouth" is a film that must be seen to be enjoyed. Its wonderful mix of anarchic, irreverent yet playful humor and one of the best performances by one of cinema's greatest actors will be a treat for any film fan. 8/10

I have been watching this movie off and on since it came out. I never tire of it. Somehow, it never becomes dated. Even the costumes, with one or two exceptions, are timeless. Alec Guinness, as Gully Jimson, is a delightful character that we can root for even when he is totally wrong. The impact of this movie was so great on me that when I see a large blank space on a wall I think of Gully Jimson and wish to see a picture painted on it.

A year after winning the Oscar for Best Actor in The Bridge on the River Kwai, Alec Guinness was back to doing comedy, but with a lot bigger budgets than he was used to. His classic parts in Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Lavendar Hill Mob were done without color for instance, which was a much bigger premium for films in the United Kingdom. Guinness has not played such a disreputable character as Cully Jimson since playing Fagin in Oliver Twist. Yet even as he's fleecing all around him including his girl friend Kay Walsh and devoted acolyte Mike Morgan, he still retains that likability. You do end up rooting for him even as he pulls some outrageous scams. Kay Walsh who as David Lean's ex-wife was friends with Guinness and his wife Merula. Lean of course was responsible for Guinness's breakout roles in Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. Guinness got her cast in the role of his long suffering girlfriend and owner of a pub. Sadly young Mike Morgan died right before shooting ended on The Horse's Mouth. Guinness had worked with him previously on Morgan's only other film credit, Barnacle Bill. He gives a nice winsome performance as the young man who just wants to bask in the glow of Guinness's talent and glosses over all the chicanery. I don't think The Horse's Mouth is as good as Kind Hearts and Coronets or The Lavendar Hill Mob. Still Guinness obviously saw the film as a labor of love and the results do show.

Alec Guinness not only stars in what amounts to a one-man show as aging, struggling London painter Gulley Jimson, he also wrote the script. Funny he got an Oscar nomination for the writing, and not for the acting. As Jimson, Guinness is a memorably growly, seedy type, testament to the artistic impulse of man running afoul of polite society. Even his nasty Fagin from "Oliver Twist" was affable company; Jimson tells off his young admirer Nosey (Mike Morgan) with a convincingly hoarse "Go do something sensible, like shooting yourself." It's all for laughs, of course, except when "The Horse's Mouth" gets mildly serious, mostly when Jimson holds forth on his vision of art. "Half a minute of revelation's worth a million years of know-nothing," he tells his companion Coker (Kay Walsh). "Who lives a million years?" is her sharp reply. "A million people every 12 months." "A Horse's Mouth" isn't always so smart. Walsh plays her part too shrill, Morgan his too moony, and the artist who provided Jimson's paintings, John Bratby, uses too much red. After establishing Jimson, Guinness's script doesn't do much with him. He paints some walls, gets into some trouble, and sails away, leaving others to bear witness to his "genius". What I like most about this film, other than Guinness's fine acting and occasional scenes here and there that feature his character to good effect, is the vivid picture you get of London circa the late 1950s, double-decker buses with hoardings for Gordon's Gin and Ty-Phoo Tea on their sides. Also, director Ronald Neame finds interesting angles to frame the film from in order to give the on-screen action (rarely painting itself, but frequently static conversation shots) a bit of vitality, and often outside with lively streetscape backdrops. This is like a David Lean movie once removed. Neame was Lean's cinematographer in his early days, Guinness was Lean's favorite actor, and Walsh was Lean's ex-wife. Even Anne V. Coates, later the Oscar-winning editor of "Lawrence Of Arabia", snipped this as well. She deserved her Oscar; not so Guinness his nomination here. As a comedy, "The Horse's Mouth" is a bit of a miss. A scene of Jimson ruining a rich couple's penthouse apartment is painfully unfunny, especially when a sculptor friend of Jimson (Michael Gough) arrives out of nowhere to add to the mess. Most of the other business in the movie, like a struggle between Jimson and his ex-wife for a portrait of her he needs for painting money, feels like chopped-down scenes from Cary's novel mined for easy laughs, at some expense to story. I didn't care much about Jimson by story's end, but I did enjoy his company, or rather that of Guinness playing Jimson, staring at a charwoman and fixated by her feet, "...old women's feet...thin, flat, long...clinging to the ground like reptiles". Like much else in regard to the movie, I'm at a loss to what it means, but I value the experience. That counts for something with art.

In my opinion, Alec Guinness' performance in this movie was his highest film acting achievement in a brilliant career. His ability to move this film along at a good pace is a joy to behold. I watch it whenever I get a chance and enjoy it no matter how often that is. Unfortunately, it isn't often enough.

I love this movie; it's on my all-time (ever-growing) list of the ones I love to see again and again. Not very surprising, I also loved reading Joyce Cary's wonderful book. However fine a film version of a work of literature, there is always more in the text. One of the glories of this film is how much of Cary's book it brings to full life. I didn't know, until seeing it in someone else's comment here, that "The Horse's Mouth" is only one book of a trilogy about Gulley Jimson. I will seek out the others as soon as possible. To the person whose name i didn't think to write down when reading your comment: Thank you very much.

I am a firm believer in the notion that actors are rare people. They have a set of challenges and concerns that are themselves interesting. Filmmakers have a different, often conflicting set of concerns and challenges. It is usually a disaster to put an actor in charge when all he knows is acting. My favorite example is Al Pacino's "Looking for Richard," but there are tons and tons of examples. Most are like this which consists entirely of defining and displaying an interesting character. Real movielovers will find all such projects unsatisfying. Plus, I'm not one who thinks this man is a great actor. But there is something a bit interesting. The character here is a great artist who cannot seem to pull off the big picture, to make things slide smoothly. The actor is too, in precisely the same ways we see, as if we are watching two layers at the same time. Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.