Rent The Chain (1984)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Bamber (Warren Mitchell) is a removal expert and philosopher extraordinaire. In a fit of optimism he schedules his removal men to undertake seven different moves in one day - all of them interconnected. It may be all in a day's work for them but for the families concerned, moving house is a harrowing experience, fraught with problems. Each person has their own particular reason for moving and each reason has a curious affiliation to one of the seven deadly sins...'The Chain' is a hilarious "what if" story that can be appreciated by anyone who has ever moved house.
- Actors:
- Denis Lawson, Rita Wolf, Phyllis Logan, David Troughton, Jade Magri, Maurice Denham, Nigel Hawthorne, Anna Massey, Billie Whitelaw, Judy Parfitt, John Rowe, Matthew Blakstad, Charlotte Long, Leo McKern, Herbert Norville, Carmen Munroe, Ron Pember, Warren Mitchell, Bernard Hill, Tony Westrope
- Directors:
- Jack Gold
- Producers:
- Victor Glynn
- Writers:
- Jack Rosenthal
- Studio:
- Network
- Genres:
- Comedy
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Reviews (1) of The Chain
Completion - The Chain review by CH
A mystery that The Chain (1984) should be little known, for it addresses two perennial themes: the seven deadly sins and the fraught business, in Britain, of moving house.
With a script by Jack Rosenthal who otherwise wrote, memorably so, for television, this is a portmanteau film in which seven couples get up early, this the day of their moving a rung up a property ladder which can often feel more like a rope turning into a noose. None of them has Ealing in their sights, but the spirit of those social comedies pervades this one.
Not least in its ensemble cast. With no member of it out to hog it, all get to give their best, part of it propelled by the removal firm which is lugging the belongings of a young couple whose bigger place is funded by giving the basement to her widowed, dictatorial father, Maurice Denham whose delaying obstructions will bring him grief.
As happens to a penny-pinching, well-heeled man (Nigel Hawthorne in a horrendous blazer) whose wife (an ever-pained Anna Massey) despairs of him as he unscrews door plates and even reaches for their light bulbs. He is an emblem of Avarice.
The Sins, though, are not laboured. Here, with a suggestion of La Ronde, is pre-AIDS London in the Eighties, a city which embraces white vans and limousines. And, all the while, aboard the removal van there are, among its aching-back crew, Bernard Hill who is asked to test colleague Warren Mitchell about the philosophers upon whom he will be examined during the evening, after this gruelling day, at what appears to be a night school (whatever happened to night school?).
Spinoza and others might appear remote from this daily life but, without over-doing it, Mitchell manages to bring words of wisdom to those in the throes of uprooting themselves. Billie Whitelaw is well known for her work with Samuel Beckett, and here, as a widow who hankers for her native Mediterranean island, she has an accent far from her stage work – but conveys a similar spirit of somebody caught in a bewildering world.
A film to relish – and wish there were more of its kind.