Postmaster

Some films just define your whole life. This one I love more than any other. The film is just about the most beautiful, romantic and literate portraits of abject failure in the history of the cinema. Especially Hancock's last scream at the art establishment: "You're all raving mad. None of you know what you're looking at. You wait til I'm dead you'll see I was right."

Another interesting aspect to this film is the way it stands at a kind of crossroads point in British cinema production. 1961 leaving some of the more tradtional ways of looking at the world behind. This is not a social comedy but a piece about the individual trying to make his way without the approval of society. Throughout the Sixties this type of hero was, in dramatic films, to become more and more prominent. The artist who exists in a world without really belonging to it. Like David Hemmings in Blow Out or even Mick Jagger in performance. But, partly because these trends existed in the theatre and new wave cinema, Hancock appears to mock the individuality of a later age. Of course Galton and Simpson's screenplay is relentlessly sending up art movements and the art establishment of the time as well as prominent myths about lonely artists struggling in Paris garrets. But The Rebel taps into a whole ethos and way of thinking that hadn't really appeared.

Jago.

The_Late_Peter_Cook

Growing up, my only contact with Tony Hancock was the regular showing of “The Rebel” on television (for some reason, “The Punch And Judy Man” never seemed to make an appearance). So for me at any rate, this movie is probably the definitive slice of Hancock, even though there are equal if not better episodes of the television and radio series out there.

It is also a movie that seems to get better with each year that passes; certainly I don’t think Galton and Simpson have ever written a better film script.