THE RISE AND RISE OF MICHAEL RIMMER
A slick politician rises to power with the help of a canny team of media advisors and clever manipulation of voting patterns: no, it’s not 2004, but 1969. Who would have thought such politically savvy prescience would have come from a low-budget British comedy long neglected and seldom seen? Fortunately Digital Classics, who have brought a number of obscure gems to glorious light, including Vivian Stanshall’s quintessentially peculiar SIR HENRY AT RAWLINSON END and Edward Dmytyk’s THE HUMAN FACTOR, have released a digitally restored version of this coolly snarky comedy written by future Pythons John Cleese and Graham Chapman with director Kevin Billington and the legendary Peter Cook. Cook stars as the titular character and embodies him with a coldly blank and enigmatic exterior, while Chapman and Cleese take minor roles, as do various luminaries of both British television comedy (like Ronnie Corbett) and stage (like Julian Glover). The beloved Arthur Lowe (DAD’S ARMY) plays Ferret, the first casualty of Rimmer’s rise, and Denholm Elliott (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK) features as the competitor who becomes his most trusted ally. Nobel Prize-winner Harold Pinter plays the news presenter who latches onto the rising star with an eye toward his own advancement. The scenes between Pinter and Elliott shine with a particularly smarmy glee.
THE RISE AND RISE
OF MICHAEL RIMMER
Director: Kevin Billington
Digital Classics DVD
£14.99
The story is the rise of the man who came from nowhere to reach impossible heights. Rimmer simply appears one day and worms his way into authority, first over the advertising agency that Ferret had run with a lackadaisical neglect. Later by manipulating poll results to assist the conservative candidate played with effective smugness by Ronald Fraser (BRIDESHEAD REVISITED), Rimmer becomes an Member of Parliament himself. Clearly he won’t stop there either. His Machiavellian rise exploits the weaknesses and decencies of those surrounding him equally without a glimmer of conscience. RIMMER was prescient also about the increasingly omnipresent deployment of sexually tantalizing images in advertisements—the toffee ad still seems over the top.
The film has been gorgeously restored with a number of scenes usually cut from the televised version (the only one most fans have seen) and includes a chatty commentary from director Billington who situates the film in its time for a modern (and presumably younger) audience and provides a variety of interesting anecdotes from the production. Even he seems to find certain scenes audacious even today, including the amount of nudity which would probably be downplayed now. Billington is adamant, however, that the film is not a spoof of the similarly manipulative tv presenter David Frost who served as executive producer of the film. He even makes light of Peter Cook’s oft-repeated comment that the only regret he had in life was saving Frost from drowning (although Alan Bennett repeated it with conviction at Cook’s funeral). Given Frost’s reputation for relentless ambition and opportunistic zeal (Cook mentions the young Frostie looting the files of the Footlights Club at Cambridge for joke material) as well as Cleese and Chapman’s work on THE FROST REPORT, the unflattering portrait seems more than a little apt. Apparently Frost was too busy to notice such details as he flew back and forth between the British and American television programs he was hosting at the time.
RIMMER is not a Python film (although the election night sequence was recycled and improved for a Python episode) but more of a dispassionate satire. It evokes knowing smiles rather than guffaws as we watch Rimmer choose his wife from a poll of sexiest women in Britain or see his company foil a rival polling firm. In fact, it might be a tad depressing to wonder why it has taken so long for us to realize they were right. But this will make a great gift for anyone fed up with the manipulative nature of politics of late regardless of the political stripe to which they belong. Yes, the DVD is Region 2. If you haven’t already invested in a region-free player (your player may have unsuspected abilities—try Google), download the free program VideoLan which will play DVDs from all regions. There’s no reason to deny yourself the pleasure of fabulous films simply because American distributors assume you only want to see the latest slasher flick or teen comedy.
