The Entertainer (1960)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Overrated and overhyped

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The film is about the decline, of a man's career, the music hall and the British Empire, with the Suez Crisis a big part of the movie's background. The acting of course is top notch, as well as Olivier the standout performances come from Joan Plowright, Brenda DeBanzie and Roger Livesey. The location filming, the theatre, the beach, the holiday camp, mostly filmed in Blackpool and Morecombe is a star in its own right.

It is amazing to me how many critics and reviewers of this film seem to have missed the subtleties in this story, and in Archie's character. Far from living in a world of futile fantasies, I think, Archie's character is much more accurately expressed by the line "The only thing I know how to do is to keep on keeping on." All available options (Canada, failure, escape, or perhaps, suicide) being unthinkable, what choice has he but to chase another hopeless dream of somehow, finally, nailing a successful show? Perhaps I identify with Archie more strongly than many viewers, having myself been at the helm of a sinking ship (a business.)One unreasonably scathing critic (did he actually watch this film??) commented on Archie's daughter, Joan's, "blind love" for her father. I think it was not "blind love" at all, but a recognition of the (probably useless) courage Archie has to muster to continue to face each day -- a day likely to hold for him only more demoralizing failure and unceasing accusation and blame. And far from being totally selfish, as some commentators have written, Archie really seems to be the only person in the family able to look beyond the extremely small focus on their own interests: he is, in fact, the only person in the Rice tribe making a real effort, despite the pain, to find a path out of the mess to a place of security for them all. Perhaps we have forgotten how dependent families were in that era on the earnings of "the breadwinner," and yet, reviewers seem to have been just as blind as many wives and families of that time to what a man often had to give up in order to be that breadwinner, including, as in Archie's case, any fantasies of greatness or even, finally, his last shreds of self-esteem. Was Archie aware of his utter failure? Oh, I think absolutely so. This is why his admission to his daughter that he was "dead" behind his eyes. All the brightness of hope or illusions of personal excellence have been hammered out of him on the iron-cold anvil of real-world failure. Even so, he found it in him to dredge up the understanding and compassion to alleviate his wife, Phoebe's drunken crash into despair and hostility; and shore up his father's nostalgic dreams. Though, alas, the latter, too, led to yet another "unforgiveable" tragedy (-- or was it?.The most exquisite and poignant tragedy of it all is that maybe, just maybe, Archie might have pulled it off, but for the failure of his clueless family to understand him or the grim realities of his doomed profession. Forget metaphors of Imperial England, this tale has surely played itself out millions of times, whenever a new technology has made an old craft obsolete -- as when the printing press replaced scribes, or when electric lights eliminated the town's lamp lighter, or when automated projectors replaced skilled projectionists. Many of the movie's reviewers, in my opinion, are as blind to what is really going on here as is Archie's family. They assume that Archie's failures are the result of his negligence and selfishness, and that his dalliance with the beauty queen is a real romance (and threat to their security), when, in his eyes, it is just another, necessary, desperate and ultimately demeaning business deal. Joan alone, it seems, finally understands -- far too late to avert the inevitable end. Ultimately, every family member's myopic conception of Archie's reality leads them to take the reflexive steps that seal his doom.Shakespeare would have been completely a home with this tragic tale, and I think it was not such a great leap away from Hamlet for Olivier.The story is richly-detailed, unexpected and though-provoking. And Olivier is superb. A stunning performance from beginning to tragically inevitable end.

Laurence Oliver, (Archie Rice) gave an outstanding performance as a washed up Comedian in the theater, however, he did attract old timers in England who remembered his great acts years and years ago. This film is something like, "Sunset Blvd.", with Gloria Swanson, who tries to make a come back on the stage and practically starves to death trying. Brenda DeBomzie, (Phoebe Rice), plays his daughter who adores her father and knows him like a book, especially when he drinks too much and starts going to bed with a girl just turned twenty (20) years of age. Poor Archie never seems to give up on the idea of still making it big on the British stage, however, his family want him to go to Canada and give the entire entertaining business a fair goodbye. Laurence Oliver was asked which film was his best and he thought this film was more like what Laurence Oliver really was as a person deep down in his very soul.

"The Entertainer" is a fascinating film based on the play by John Osborne ("Look Back in Anger"); Osborne co-wrote the screenplay.Olivier plays Archie Rice, a fading entertainer in a fading medium (music halls) in a fading empire (the Suez crisis of 1956 figures into the action).Archie's speech to his daughter (Joan Plowright), onstage in an empty theater, about being dead behind his eyes, is especially memorable.Along with other fine actors, Alan Bates and Albert Finney as his sons flesh out this film, which is a must-see for fans of any of these actors.