Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment – 1966 | 97mins | Fantasy, Comedy | Colour

Plot Synopsis

A dreadfully dated cult classic from the 1960s directed by Czech born filmmaker Karel Reisz and adapted from David Mercer’s now lost BBC television play. Cut with dream sequences from King Kong and Tarzan films, Morgan’s depiction of surreal madness and dark humour made it the Swinging Sixties wildest, funniest and most provocative comedy. David Warner produces a blissfully deranged breakthrough performance and Vanessa Redgrave earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role.

Anarchic Londoner Morgan Delt (David Warner), a working class artist with a gorilla-fixation tries to regain the affections of his upper-class divorced wife Leonie (Vanessa Redgrave). Leonie rejects Morgan’s attempts at reconciliation and when she informs him of her plans to marry stuffy art dealer Robert Stephens (Charles Napier), Morgan slips off the mental deep end into a vivid fantasy life. Morgan enacts a series of bizarre gags and stunts in an often hilarious campaign to win Leonie back, including putting a skeleton in her bed, blasting animal noises throughout her house, kidnapping her and attempting to blow up her future mother-law. On the day of Leonie and Robert’s wedding, Morgan gatecrashes the reception dressed in a gorilla costume. His antics eventually lead to Morgan’s arrest and sectioning in a psychiatric asylum, where he embraces his Stalinist mother’s (Irene Handl) ardent communist beliefs.