The Rebel
Bowler hats and umbrellas at dawn, the morning commute to Waterloo and another stifling day in the repressive accounts department of United International Transatlantic Consolidated Amalgamated Ltd, it’s not the life that Anthony Hancock imagined, enraged when he is challenged over the doodling in his ledgers and being excused for the afternoon by his surprisingly sympathetic manager.
Returning home to his upstairs lodgings where he paints and sculpts, his landlady Mrs Cora Crevatte also takes exception and the decision is made to pack up his brushes, paints and chisel and leave Britain for the Continent, anticipating that Paris will be more welcoming to a struggling artist of unique voice unbound by the schools of thought of the existing art movements, the impressionists and surrealists, finding kindred spirits in the cafes and bars.
An enormous star of radio and television through the fifties and into the sixties with a radio and television series running simultaneously at one point under the same title, Hancock’s Half Hour, the first feature film to star Tony Hancock was The Rebel, released in March 1961, two months before the final episodes of the television show were broadcast, following the same flexible and sometimes surreal format and written by Hancock’s long-term associates and collaborators, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Quickly escaping the confines of England to the boulevards of Paris and the blue skies of Monte Carlo, Hancock remains Hancock, dour and defeated and the anchor of the film as a revolving door of familiar faces share brief scenes to act as foils or expose foibles then exit, John Le Mesurier as the office manager, Irene Handl as Mrs Crevatte, bra straps escaping under her silk blouse, Nanette Newman as beatnik existentialist Josey, with Paul Massie as the undiscovered artist with the true talent and George Sanders as the critic who wishes to profit from launching a new career and even Oliver Reed in a rare comedy role.
Mocking the art world and celebrity and those who fawn over it, Hancock desires to belong among those who dismiss his work, an artist, a Bohemian, yet he is resistant to modernity, to change, deriding the Parisian art set even as he attends their parties in the same way as he refused the “frothy coffee” offered to him by Liz Fraser’s barista, and the second half of The Rebel is less entertaining as he is accepted into the pretentious establishment which he previously derided, becoming a boor in the process.
Joining StudioCanal’s Vintage Classics range, The Rebel, also known as Call Me Genius in the United States in order to avoid confusion with a long-running dramatic show of the same name, is supported by a commentary by Paul Merton with writers Galton and Simpson and two interviews discussing the work and enduring legacy of Tony Hancock from Merton and Diane Morgan as well as a gallery and the original theatrical trailer.
The Rebel will be available on Blu-ray and DVD from StudioCanal from Monday 3rd March
