Rent The Entertainer (1960)
3.5 of 5 from 103 ratings
1h 39min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Career first. Everything else second. According to vaudevillian Archie Rice (Laurence Olivier), the show must go on - even if it means stringing along his fellow performers, exploiting the hopes and money of a starlet and neglecting his own family. This is Archie's world, but not everyone wants to live in it. His only daughter (Joan Plowright) will do everything she can to breakthrough and bring him around; if only she can make him listen...
- Actors:
- Laurence Olivier, Brenda De Banzie, Roger Livesey, Joan Plowright, Alan Bates, Daniel Massey, Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field, Thora Hird, Miriam Karlin, Geoffrey Toone, MacDonald Hobley, Anthony Oliver, Max Bacon, George Doonan, James Culliford, Gilbert Davis, Charles Gray, Gwen Nelson, Hope Jackman
- Directors:
- Tony Richardson
- Producers:
- Harry Saltzman
- Voiced By:
- Richard Baker
- Writers:
- John Osborne
- Studio:
- MGM
- Genres:
- Drama, Music & Musicals
- Collections:
- 10 Films to Watch if You Like Stan & Ollie, 10 Films to Watch if You Like: Limelight, Acting Up: British Actors at the Oscars, Award Winners, Films to Watch If You Like..., Films to Watch if You Like: Get Carter, Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: Kenneth Branagh, Remembering Shirley Anne Field, The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to Basil Dearden, Top 10 British Seaside Movies, Top Films
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 11/06/2018
- Run Time:
- 103 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.66:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
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Reviews (3) of The Entertainer
Olivier acted his pants off - The Entertainer review by jw
Brilliant. Olivier should have got that Oscar, but it was the year Ben Hur was released. Or was Olivier just getting to be himself? This film makes a revealing historical document of the working class holiday places of the time that pointed to another era much older. And Alan Bates in his first movie!
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Time machine - The Entertainer review by NI
If you want to see what everyday life was like in 1950s Britain take a look at this. It's accurate - I know, I was there. An excellent film of Osborne's play with super performances. Captures the sadness of a fading career in a fading genre - music hall.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Period realism. - The Entertainer review by Steve
Groundbreaking British New Wave film adapted by John Osborne from the play he wrote for Laurence Olivier. Critics claim that Larry was far better playing Archie Rice on stage than screen, which is staggering. His performance here is among the masterpieces of English cinema. He killed the role for anyone else.
Archie is a soft shoe shuffle comic in the last days of music hall: bankrupt, lecherous and a little grotesque; barely scraping a living from an old seaside town while his options for the future are closed down. He has no reason to go on, but is unable to stop because it's all he knows. Olivier gives us a journey into his humiliation.
Though Archie is a scoundrel, the star makes it possible to empathise with his degradation. Eventually it becomes clear that this story of a derelict song and dance man still doing the old routines to an indifferent world is an allegory for Britain's diminished status made apparent during the Suez crisis, which is when it is set.
The support cast operates in the shadow of Olivier, but it is interesting to see the film debuts of Alan Bates and Albert Finney. The realistic location shoot in Morecambe during holiday season now makes the film look like a period piece, but the theme of a declining country divided by class, race and the generations is still familiar.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.