Film(s) You May Have Missed (#14)

Dean Spanley (2008), Venus (2006) and Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell (1999)

All three films showcase the acting of Peter O'Toole. This should be recommendation enough, but in case it isn’t –

'Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell'  is a TV film recording of the Old Vic production of Keith Waterhouse's stage play and is an almost one-man show with O’Toole playing the very real Spectator journalist and Soho ‘character’ Jeffrey Bernard. It is both hilarious and sad as Bernard, locked in his favourite Soho watering-hole overnight, looks back over his life.

‘Venus’ has O’Toole as an old man who fancies his best friend’s young niece. Looking through the Amazon reviews it becomes apparent that this film upsets people with its depiction of an octogenarian lusting after a young woman. I think it shows an old fool trying to recapture a long-lost emotion and I find it far more disturbing when the likes of wrinkly old Clint Eastwood has his young co-stars swooning over his every macho squint. ‘Venus’ handles the February/December affair with great skill and understanding. Fellow veteran actor Leslie Phillips joins O’Toole along with Jodie Whittaker in her first film.

‘Dean Spanley’ has O’Toole playing a bitter old man in Edwardian England who is growing more distant from his only remaining son until Dean Spanley, played by Sam Neill, enters their lives. Under the influence of fine wine, Spanley reveals that he is the reincarnation of a dog. Don’t ask; just watch and enjoy.

If I could only take one of these three to a desert island then it would have to be ‘Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell’ because O’Toole is even more brilliant than usual.