The Ruling Class

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The Ruling Class
Directed by Peter Medak
Produced by Jules Buck
Jack Hawkins
Written by Peter Barnes
Starring Peter O'Toole
Alastair Sim
Arthur Lowe
Harry Andrews
Music by John Cameron
Distributed by AVCO Embassy Pictures
Release date(s) 1972
Running time 154 min.
Language English
Budget $1.4m
IMDb profile

The Ruling Class is a 1972 film, an adaption of Peter Barnes' satirical stage play which tells the story of a paranoid schizophrenic British nobleman (played by Peter O'Toole) who inherits a peerage.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Jack Gurney, the 14th Earl of Gurney, at first he thinks he is God and shocks his family and friends with his talk of returning to the world to bring it love and charity, not to mention his penchant for breaking out into song and dance routines and laying himself out in a crucifixion pose. His unscrupulous uncle, Sir Charles, marries him to his mistress, Grace, in hopes of producing an heir and putting his nephew in an institution; the plan fails when Grace actually falls in love with Gurney.

Gurney gains another ally in Sir Charles' wife, who hates her husband and befriends Gurney just to spite him. She also begins sleeping with Gurney's psychiatrist, Dr. Herder, to persuade him to cure Gurney quickly.

Herder attempts to cure him through intensive psychotherapy, but it was to no avail, as Gurney so thoroughly believes that he is the 'God of Love' that, ironically, he dismisses any suggestion to the contrary as the rambling of lunatics. The night his wife goes into labour with their child, Herder makes one last effort at therapy; he introduces Gurney to a patient who also believes himself to be Christ, or, as the patient put it, "The Electric Messiah," who subjects an unwitting Gurney to electroshock therapy. The plan was to use the electroshock to (literally) jolt Gurney out of his delusions, showing him that the two men could not both be God, and so he must be operating under hallucinations. The plan works, and, as Grace delivers a healthy baby boy, Gurney returns to his senses and reclaims his true identity proclaiming "I'm Jack, I'm Jack".

Sir Charles, still intent on stealing the lordship, sends for a court psychiatrist to evaluate Gurney, confident that his nephew would be sent to an asylum for life. He is once again thwarted, however, when the psychiatrist discovers that Gurney was a fellow Old Etonian, bonds with him, and declares him sane.

Gurney soon relapses into mental illness, however, this time believing himself to be Jack the Ripper. Now a violent psychopath with a puritanical hatred of women, Gurney murders Sir Charles' wife in a fit of enraged revulsion when the aging woman tries to seduce him. He frames the Maoist family butler, Tucker, for the murder, and assumes his place in the House of Lords with a fiery speech in favour of capital and corporal punishment. That night, he murders Grace for expressing her love for him.

The story's ending is ambiguous; it is unknown whether Gurney got caught, or escaped detection to kill again.

The movie was adapted by Peter Barnes from his play with few major changes. It was directed by Peter Medak. It cost around $1.4 million, with O'Toole working for free (he was instead paid a great deal for the big budget Man of La Mancha, released by the same studio later the same year). It was filmed at a sprawling estate in Harlaxton with the interiors reconstructed on sound stages.

In Britain, the released film ran some two-and-a-half hours. The American distributors insisted it be cut by twenty minutes.

It stars O'Toole in the lead, Alastair Sim as his uncle, an addled bishop, William Mervyn as Sir Charles, Coral Browne as his wife, Harry Andrews as the 13th Earl of Gurney, Carolyn Seymour as Grace, James Villiers as his dim-witted, foppish cousin and Arthur Lowe as Tucker.

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