The Entertainer (1960)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Tony Richardson

Writers:

John Osborne (screenplay) and
Nigel Kneale (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

2 December 1960 (Denmark)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

As the applause grew fainter ... As the spotlight grew dimmer ... His women were younger!

Plot:

Archie Rice, an old-time British vaudeville performer sinking into final defeat, schemes to stay in show business.

Plot Keywords:

Vaudeville | Generation | Adultery | Failure | Family Relationships

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

Laurence Olivier	...	Archie Rice
Brenda De Banzie	...	Phoebe Rice
Roger Livesey	...	Billy Rice
Joan Plowright	...	Jean Rice
Alan Bates	...	Frank Rice
Daniel Massey	...	Graham
Albert Finney	...	Mick Rice
Shirley Anne Field	...	Tina Lapford
Thora Hird	...	Mrs. Ada Lapford
Miriam Karlin	...	Soubrette
Geoffrey Toone	...	Harold Hubbard
MacDonald Hobley	...	Himself - the TV star (as McDonald Hobley)
Anthony Oliver	...	Interviewer
Max Bacon	...	Charlie Klein
George Doonan	...	Eddie Trimmer
James Culliford	...	Cobber Carson (as James Cuillford)
Gilbert Davis	...	Brother Bill
Charles Gray	...	Columnist
Gwen Nelson
Hope Jackman	...	Morecambe Mother
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nigel Davenport	...	Theatre Manager (uncredited)
Angie Dean	...	Alhambra Sister (uncredited)
Debbie Dean	...	Alhambra Sister (uncredited)
Jo Linden	...	Gloria (uncredited)
Tony Longridge	...	Mr. Wilfrid Lapford (uncredited)
Roger Manvell	...	Bit Part (uncredited)
Shirli Scott-James	...	Girl (uncredited)
Tony Selby	...	Teddy Boy (uncredited)
James Thornhill	...	Stage Door Keeper (uncredited)
Vicky Travers	...	Nude (uncredited)
Mercia Turner	...	Britannia (uncredited)
Constance Wells	...	Scots Singer (uncredited)
Hermon Wells	...	Scots Singer (uncredited)

Directed by
Tony Richardson

Writing credits
John Osborne		(screenplay) and
Nigel Kneale		(screenplay)
John Osborne		adaptation

Produced by
John Croydon	....	associate producer
Harry Saltzman	....	producer

Original Music by
John Addison

Cinematography by
Oswald Morris		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Alan Osbiston

Casting by
Maude Spector		(uncredited)

Art Direction by
Ralph W. Brinton		(as Ralph Brinton)

Costume Design by
Jocelyn Rickards

Makeup Department
Bill Griffiths	....	hairdresser
Tony Sforzini	....	makeup artist

Production Management
R.L.M. Davidson	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Michael Stevenson	....	third assistant director
Peter Yates	....	assistant director
Roy Millichip	....	second assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Ted Marshall	....	assistant art director
Basil Mannin	....	scenic artist (uncredited)
Tony Woollard	....	draughtsman (uncredited)

Sound Department
Chris Greenham	....	sound editor
Peter Handford	....	sound
Bob Jones	....	sound
Norman Bolland	....	sound maintenance (uncredited)
Des Edwards	....	sound camera operator (uncredited)
Ken Ritchie	....	boom operator (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Denys N. Coop	....	camera operator (as Denys Coop)
Ginger Gemmel	....	second camera operator (uncredited)
Ronnie Maasz	....	focus puller (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Barbara Gillett	....	wardrobe (as Barbara Gillette)

Music Department
John Addison	....	conductor
Ronald Cass	....	associate music director (as Ronnie Cass)
William Blezard	....	music arranger: Chopin (uncredited)
Ronald Cass	....	composer: additional music (uncredited)

Other crew
Honor Blair	....	stager
Maggie Shipway	....	continuity (as Margaret Shipway)
Maggie Unsworth	....	continuity (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Woodfall Film Productions

Distributors

• Bryanston Films (1960) (UK) (theatrical) (in association with)
• British Lion Film Corporation (1960) (UK) (theatrical)
• Continental Distributing (1960) (USA) (theatrical)
• Better Television Distribution (2006) (worldwide) (TV)
• Criterion Collection, The (USA) (laserdisc)

Runtime:

96 min | USA:105 min (TCM print)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Australia:G (TV rating) | UK:PG | UK:X (original rating) | Finland:S | Sweden:15 | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, UK

Company:

Woodfall Film Productions

Trivia:

Roger Livesey plays Laurence Olivier's father in ‘The Entertainer’, yet is less than one year older than Olivier -- Olivier was born in May 1907 while Livesey was born in June 1906.

Quotes:

Archie Rice: [to unresponsive audience] Don't clap too loudly, it's a very old building.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Harry Saltzman: Showman (2000) (V)

Soundtrack:

Put Me Amongst the Girls

Nuns, clergymen, and dogs

Laurence Olivier is "The Entertainer," in a 1960 film based on the John Osborne play in which Olivier played one of his greatest roles, Archie Rice. He's surrounded by Joan Plowright as Archie's daughter Jean, and Brenda de Banzie as his emotionally fragile second wife, Phoebe. Olivier, Plowwright and de Banzie all repeat their stage roles, and it was while in the play that Olivier and Plowright met, fell in love, married, and stayed together until his death. Albert Finney is Mick and Alan Bates is Frank, Archie's sons, and Roger Livesey is Billy Rice, Archie's father and a beloved, well remembered music hall performer. Daniel Massey plays the role of Graham. It's an auspicious cast of veterans and newcomers.

Archie has followed in his father's footsteps with a lot less success. He's a second-rate entertainer - and that's being kind - in a seaside resort - and his show is in trouble. Archie's in trouble, too, as he's an undischarged bankruptcy and everything is in his wife's name. He's a fairly overt womanizer, which makes his wife a wreck. She's afraid of dying alone and wants the family to move to Canada and join a successful relative in the hotel business. But Archie won't give up following every dream in spite of some harsh realities. He takes up with a 20-year-old second prize beauty contestant - her father's rich and can back his new show.

As I read through the reviews on IMDb, I have to wonder where some people's hearts are. That's not a comment on the people, believe me, rather on the world we live in. I can tell you this - if you think what Olivier does isn't special and can't understand why he was nominated for an Oscar, if you can't see that he is Everyman, if you can't see the comment on Britain in general - you just haven't lived enough yet. You'll see this film again one day and it'll hurt, believe me. There can't be anyone my age, especially with ambition and a creative mind, who can't understand what Archie Rice is going through. Though he's in no way a sympathetic character, one can empathize with his life and begrudgingly admire the fact that he refuses to take the easy way out.

Jean, since she doesn't live full time with this bad road company version of "Long Day's Journey Into Night" - i.e., her family - is sympathetic to both Phoebe's hysteria and her father's delusions. The scene over the cake - one of the reviewers on the board found it disturbingly realistic - there's someone who knows dysfunction when he sees it. A brilliant scene, but nothing beats Archie's monologue to his daughter when he asks her to look at his eyes. "I'm dead," he says.

Olivier has said this is his favorite character as it contains so much of him. It's obvious from interviews with Olivier that it does. Like many highly successful people, he began to see himself as Archie, a kind of fake who, as Archie says, can be warm and smiling and feel nothing. "It's all tricks," Olivier told writer Jack Kroll once. It's not an uncommon feeling. It wasn't all tricks, of course, and as we see in Archie's final version of the song that ran through the film, "Why Should I Care?" he had finally reached the part of himself that makes a truly great artist, like the woman he heard sing the spiritual. Olivier, of course, hit those heights many times.

England is pronounced as a "dying country" in the beginning of the film, which sets up the metaphor of Archie as a symbol of the country. I'm not British - it's for those who lived during that time period in 1960 to comment on it, and they have. There are some brilliant reviews on the board covering that subject.

"Why Should I Care?" Archie sings. I don't have an answer. But if anyone could make me care, it was always Lord Laurence Olivier, be he the ruined man in "Carrie," the beautiful Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights," James Tyrone on stage in "Long Day's Journey," or Max de Winter in "Rebecca." An amazing legacy, one in a million - don't miss him as Archie Rice in "The Entertainer."