The Entertainer Details

This was the cinema version of one of the Royal Court Theatre's most notable achievements: playwright John Osborne's follow-up to his ground-breaking Look Back in Anger. The show brought Laurence Olivier to the world of kitchen-sink drama, and dragged West End audiences off to Sloane Square to see Olivier's stunning performance as music-hall has-been Archie Rice, a seedy vaudeville artist who brings misery to all who know him. It was a personal triumph for Olivier on stage but, in enshrining the legendary actor's performance on celluloid, director Tony Richardson laid bare Olivier's technique and the result was rather too mannered. Re-editing was carried out and the cinema and press screenings delayed. Archie Rice is actually nothing more than a third-rate ham and sadly little in Olivier's screen incarnation could allow him to be that: imagine Max Miller in the part. The film flopped at the box office, yet now can be viewed as an enduring record of that great stage production. It also boasts screen debuts from two future stars, Alan Bates and Albert Finney. Olivier married co-star Joan Plowright (who plays his protective daughter Jean) the following year.

Even with Olivier repeating his stage triumph, or perhaps because of it, this tragi-comedy remains defiantly theatrical and does not take wing on film.