The Rebel (1961)
Directed by Robert Day

Film Review

When you consider the enormous impact that Tony Hancock had in Britain as a comic performer on radio and television from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s it comes as no surprise that he should have ended up appearing in films.  What is more surprising is how brief and desultory Hancock's film career was, thanks mainly to the comedian's obsessive pickiness over his scripts.  Of the four films that Hancock appeared in only two place him centre stage and make full use of his comedic talents: The Rebel (1961) and The Punch and Judy Man (1963).  The former of these was scripted by the legendary comedy writing team of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, who supplied the scripts for every episode of Hancock's signature series (on radio and television), Hancock's Half Hour.  The film was directed by Robert Day, who had previously helmed the classic comedy Two Way Stretch (1960) and the first in a series of Tarzan films beginning with Tarzan the Magnificent (1960).

The Rebel is a humorous and pretty merciless assault on the pretensions of the artistic set of the 1960s.  In his series, Hancock was often set up to play the phoney intellectual, parodying a glib, self-loving and culturally inadequate stratum of society with hilarious results.  The Rebel takes its cue from Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence, with Hancock giving up an unfulfilled office job in London to indulge his artistic leanings in gay Paris, happily oblivious to the fact that his only talent is an unerring capacity for convincing his fellow artists that he is a genius.  The casting of George Sanders as the art dealer who 'discovers' Hancock is a nice touch - Sanders had already played the lead in the definitive screen adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence.

Whilst much of the humour is broad and repetitive (definitely not up to Galton and Simpson's usual standard), the satire is spot on and Hancock's presence ensures that most of the gags hit home.  Existentialists portrayed as weird, over-made-up Goths get more than their fair share of ribbing, but most of the film's bile appears to be directed at those for whom art is just another fashionable commodity, to be traded in and salivated over according to prevailing tastes.  There is an undercurrent of self-mockery in the film, deriving possibly from Hancock's own chronic lack of confidence in his abilities as a comedian.  Shortly after the film was made, Hancock ended his long-term collaboration with Galton and Simpson and would begin a tragic decline into obscurity that ended in suicide in 1968.  The Rebel may not be the greatest thing to which Tony Hancock lent his formidable talents but it is an enjoyable romp that has withstood the test of time remarkably well - and a rare treat to see the 'lad himself' in full colour and looking startlingly rejuvenated.  It should have been the start of a whole new career, and could well have been if the film hadn't bombed at the American box office.

Film Synopsis

Tired of the unending monotony of his life as a lowly office clerk, Anthony Hancock Esq. sets out for Paris to make a name for himself as an artist.  Despite his complete lack of talent, Hancock has no difficulty persuading one struggling young painter, Paul Ashby, that he is a genius.  Paul invites Hancock to share his studio apartment and within no time Hancock has become the darling of the bohemian set, impressing everyone with his revolutionary notions about art.  Believing that he has no future as an artist, Paul gives up and returns to England, just before Hancock is visited by an influential art dealer, Sir Charles Brewer.  The latter mistakes Paul's paintings for Hancock's and, excited by his discovery, arranges to sell them to a shipping magnate.  As the money starts rolling in, Hancock can hardly believe his good fortune, but when Sir Charles asks him to provide further paintings for an exhibition in London he finds himself in a terrible quandary.  Is the world ready for his infantile school of art?