PRICK UP YOUR EARS [1987 / 2015] [Blu-ray] [USA Release]
One of the Most Remarkable British Films of the Decade!
In his research on the celebrated playwright Joe Orton [Gary Oldman], biographer John Lahr’s [Wallace Shawn] meetings with Joe Orton’s literary agent Peggy Ramsay [Vanessa Redgrave] gets to frame the story of the life of the artist.
Told through flashbacks, the film reveals the relationship between Joe Orton and his mentor and subsequently his lover Kenneth Halliwell [Alfred Molina]. At first blush the older Kenneth Halliwell is the educator and Joe Orton is a willing student. Those roles would be reversed with the success of Joe Orton’s play “Entertaining Mr. Sloane,” a success that would place Kenneth Halliwell in Joe orton’s shadow, leading to tragic consequences.
The talents of Vanessa Redgrave, Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina are a virtual master class on screen acting. Guiding then through their paces via a wonderful screenplay by Alan Bennett [‘The History Boys’], based on the book by John Lahr and director Stephen Frears [‘The Queen’] weaves a compelling caustic, often humorous and never less than entertaining tale of fleeting fame.
FILM FACT No1: Awards and Nominations: 1987 Cannes Film Festival: Win: Best Artistic Contribution for Stanley Myers (composer). Nomination: Palme d'Or for Stephen Frears (director). 1987 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards: Nomination: Best Supporting Actress for Vanessa Redgrave. 1987 New York Film Critics Circle Awards: Win: Best Supporting Actress for Vanessa Redgrave. 1988 Golden Globes: Nomination: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture for Vanessa Redgrave. 1988 BAFTA Film Awards: Nomination: Best Actor for Gary Oldman. Nomination: Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Vanessa Redgrave. Nomination: Best Adapted Screenplay for Alan Bennett. 1988 Evening Standard British Film Awards: Win: Best Screenplay for Alan Bennett. 1988 London Critics Circle Film Awards: Win: Actor of the Year for Gary Oldman. 1988 National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA: Nomination: Best Supporting Actress for Vanessa Redgrave.
FILM FACT No.2: Ian McKellen was originally envisioned as Kenneth Halliwell. Ian McKellen explained: "I needed a holiday – I'd been working so hard – so I just kept saying 'no, no, no', but when I saw the film I really regretted not having done it." Dame Maggie Smith turned down the role of Peggy Ramsay, saying that she did not want to perturb her sons by starring in a film that featured homosexual promiscuity and murder. Keith Allen was in talks to play Joe Orton before Gary Oldman was cast.
Cast: Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave, Wallace Shawn, Lindsay Duncan, Julie Walters, James Grant, Frances Barber, Janet Dale, Dave Atkins, Margaret Tyzack, Eric Richard, William Job, Rosalind Knight, Angus MacKay, Linda Spurrier, Charlotte Wodehouse, Helena Michell, Sean Pertwee, Liam De Staic, Charles McKeown, Selina Cadell, Bert Parnaby, Anthony Carrick, Neil Dudgeon, Richard Wilson, Christopher Guinee, Stevan Rimkus, Michael Müller, Anthony Douse, John Kane, Steven Mackintosh, Garry Cooper, Roger Lloyd Pack, Joanne Connelly, John Moffatt, Philippa Davies, David Cardy, Julie Legrand, Noel Davis, Jane Blackburn, Stella Richman, Neville Phillips, Jonny Phillips, Richard Ireson, Ahmed Elgheur, Moktar Dagmouni, Sian Thomas, Stephen Bill, Karl Johnson, David Bradley, Simon Adams, James Duggan, Max Stafford-Clark, Mark Brignal, Joan Sanderson, Neville Smith, Spencer Leigh, John Salthouse, Robin Hooper, John Bailey (uncredited), Derek Jarman (uncredited), Derek Lyons (uncredited) and Queen Elizabeth II (archive footage) (uncredited)
Director: Stephen Frears
Producer: Andrew Brown
Screenplay: Alan Bennett (screenplay) and John Lahr (biography)
Composer: Stanley Myers
Cinematography: Oliver Stapleton, B.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: English: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio
Subtitles: None
Running Time: 105 minutes
Region: Region A/1
Number of discs: 1
Studio: The Samuel Goldwyn Company / Olive Films
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: Stephen Frears ‘PRICK UP YOUR EARS’ [1987] chronicles the rise and tragic demise of Joe Orton, the gay playwright whose brief but dazzling career spawned the brilliant farces ‘Loot,’ ‘Entertaining Mr. Sloan’ and ‘What the Butler Saw’ and made a lasting contribution to the English-language theatre.
As the film opens, the police find the bodies of both Joe Orton [Gary Oldman] and Kenneth Halliwell [Alfred Molina] along with a suicide note that states: “If you read his diaries, all will be explained.” Vanessa Redgrave is featured as Joe Orton's manager in putting together a story with biographer John Lahr [Wallace Shawn], who is seeking Joe Orton's diaries to research his book on the playwright. Interspersed throughout are the major events from Joe Orton's life, like his first introduction to Kenneth Halliwell and their relationship is traced from its beginnings at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, their joint arrest for defacing library books, success on the London stage, a screenplay for the second Beatles film that was rejected by Brian Epstien [David Cardy], and eventually the demise of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell.
Revisiting Stephen Frears Joe Orton biopic film brought back so many wonderful memories of 1987, when it was a good time for gay cinema, but a bad time to be actually gay, especially as it was illegal then and for most young people today ‘Prick Up Your Ears’ will be of little significance, especially the way the law has changed and now gay can get married. But for me, this biopic film about the short life of the playwright Joe Orton is the catalyst for a tidal wave of wonderful memories associated with the film's original release in 1987. The film charts the meteoric rise and gruesomely spectacular end to their careers of two of the most influential dramatists of the late sixties, for Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. The intensity and frustration of their existence is conveyed so well by the leading brilliant actors, in particular by Alfred Molina who plays Kenneth Halliwell and Vanessa Redgrave as Joe Orton's predatory literary and theatrical agent.
Both men were homosexuals and they lived in a tiny Islington bedsit, wrote plays, decorated the walls of their flat with cuttings from magazines, defacing library books with suitably lewd amendments to the book dust jackets and returned them to the shelves, for which they were imprisoned for six months. But eventually their lifestyle could not last and after they came out of prison the two men grew apart. Joe Orton was writing with confidence and becoming successful while Kenneth Halliwell became increasingly disconnected and also became very insecure.
Watching the film ‘PRICK UP YOUR EARS’ again brings so many specific cultural changes in Great Britain at the time and watching this Blu-ray disc brought everything sharply into focus. The film represented a remarkable convergence of talent, especially the brilliant adapted screenplay by Alan Bennett from the John Lahr biography of Joe Orton, and of course the brilliant film was also so brilliantly directed by Stephen Frears, which was then fresh from Stephen Frears success of another gay-themed crossover hit, ‘My Beautiful Laundrette.’ Alan Bennett and Stephen Frears went onto much greater success, both qualifying for the dreaded accolade of “national treasure,” and did some of their sharpest film work ever. Together they created something highly unusual, a 1960s film in which nostalgia is conspicuous by its absence. Period pieces that treated the past were at the time in 1987, a very rare occurrence, but with the film ‘PRICK UP YOUR EARS’ it tells it how it was with a story that is brisk and very bluntly, and definitely without rose-tinted glasses.
Gary Oldman, whose portrayal of Joe Orton manages the unusual feat of being both cocksure and vulnerable at the same time. Alfred Molina who plays Kenneth Halliwell bravely resists the temptation to make a monster out of being Joe Orton's lover who eventually murderers Joe Orton. Vanessa Redgrave is all legs and lips as the literary and theatrical agent Peggy Ramsay. Watch out too, for a brilliant dotty Julie Walters cameo performances as Joe Orton’s mother, and a walk-on part for the late Derek Jarman, who eventually went on to be the reigning king of a couple of now-defunct British film-making scenes, especially in the art house and gay cinema genre.
The Joe Orton diaries, covered the last eight months of his life, catalogue the descending spiral of Kenneth Halliwell's decay. Joe Orton's own promiscuous marathons and the eruption of his career, culminating in an Evening Standard Drama Award and the offer to script a Beatles film. Kenneth Halliwell was completely ignored and uncredited, and left alone with his growing sense of failure and Kenneth Halliwell could take no more and so on the 9th August, 1967 both of their lives ended at the hand of Kenneth Halliway. Eventually life became more tolerant in Great Britain for gays, which was eventually to become all for the good for society as a whole and of course no one would ever wish for a return to that intolerant and bigoted Great Britain of 1987. But for those who do remember it like me, the experience of re-watching ‘PRICK UP YOUR EARS’ is bound to induce a shudder, as well as a thrill at the same time. At the time of its original release, the film was quite daring, especially with Stephen Frears directing, and especially combined with top-notch acting, a terrific script by playwright Alan Bennett, and a fine attention to period details which makes ‘PRICK UP YOUR EARS’ a film well worth purchasing on this Blu-ray disc, because you will be well rewarded.
PRICK UP YOUR EARS MUSIC TRACK LIST
DANCING HEARTS (Music by Stanley Myers) (Lyrics by Richard Myhill) (Arranged by Richard Myhill)
A DAY IN THE LIFE (Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney)
INDIAN DNCE (uncredited) (Music by M. Kansara)
RECOGNITION FANFARE (uncredited) (Music by Ernest Bullock)
VIVAT REGINA (uncredited) (Music by Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)
ZADOK THE PRIEST (uncredited) (Music by George Frideric Handel)
BY THE BEAUTIFUL SEA (Written by Harry Carroll and Harold Atteridge)
* * * * *
Blu-ray Image Quality – ‘PRICK UP YOUR EARS’ is brought to you via the brilliant The Samuel Goldwyn Company and Olive Films and presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. We also get a stunning 1080p encoded image that is so superior to my inferior DVD copy I had and such a joy to watch and has a very garish colour appearance that is very accurate and really enhance the films performance, but with some of the darker outside scenes you get a peculiar shimmering effect, but I suspect most of its problems may very well stem from the original source material issues and should have been at least tweaked somewhat, but despite this, it is still a brilliant colourful image presentation. . I have to report there is no image age related wear and tear to report.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – The Samuel Goldwyn Company audio presentation has only one stand-alone 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio experience and is certainly a breath of fresh air and sounds even better than when I remember viewing my inferior DVD. The outdoor footage and stage productions showcase a great deal of depth and ambience. With the films composition remains well balanced and is a massive improvement over the inferior DVD audio presentation, and definitely the audio fidelity is really fine.
* * * * *
Blu-ray Special Feature and Extras:
Theatrical Trailer [1987] [1080i] [1.85:1] [1:44] This is the Original Theatrical Trailer of ‘PRICK UP YOU EARS,’ and is really a great presentation in giving the audience a good taster of what to expect with such a brilliant awesome award winning film, but sadly the print is very grainy presentation at times.
Finally, with the film ‘PRICK UP YOUR EARS,’ you will experience a great deal of laughter, mockery and absurdity with which the characters in Joe Orton's plays could transcend intolerable situations that Joe Orton sadly could not match in real life. But watching this brilliant Blu-ray makes you appreciate what a brilliant intelligent person Joe Orton was and is still a cult figure today, and if he was alive today, I reckon he would have been in the class of the equally brilliant and prolific Alan Bennett. ‘PRICK UP YOU EARS’ provides incredible showcases for both Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina, both of whom give their roles with great authenticity and a surprising amount of feeling. The supporting cast is equally similarly impressive, and the story itself is totally and utterly riveting, if ultimately very sad at the same time by the end of the film. Technical merits are extremely very good on this Blu-ray release of ‘PRICK UP YOU EARS.’ Very Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
