Clockwise

I recall a review in the Washington Post when this film was in theater release. It said something like, "If you want to see the master at work, go see this film." I thought that was very fitting. If you like John Cleese's brand of comedy, it's on good display here.

In its way, the movie is a simple comedy of errors. Murphy's Law dogs Cleese everywhere he goes. Yet despite the great John Cleese reactions to the never-ending stream of challenges, his character never loses sight of his goals or his integrity. I think that juxtaposition is part of what makes the movie work. Despite all the humiliations and frustrations, the character never forgets that he's doing it all for the sake of his students and his school.

Anything featuring the immense talents of John Cleese is automatically worth seeing, and this eighties comedy is certainly no exception. Aside from the great john Cleese, this film benefits from a great number of other positives, including a finely worked script; that manages to stay realistic and down to Earth despite the highly unlikely nature of much of the plot, and the highly farcical nature of many of the events; which bode extremely well with the lead star, as Cleese finds himself in his element in the role of the strict headmaster. Indeed, the major reason why this film works so well is down to the former Monty Python star, as he blunders his way through the film and somehow manages to retain and air of authority while doing so. The comedy styling is one of "it can't get any worse!", and it continually does; as constantly punctual headteacher, Brian Stimpson, finds himself in a world of trouble after missing the train to Norwich, where he is set to make a speech to a meeting of the best headmasters in the country. After acquiring the services of one of his sixth form pupils, he gets back on track to Norwich; but not without a number of problems.

The comedy comes by way of both gags, and the plot itself, which always manages to garner a laugh or two due to its superbly silly nature. Cleese is joined by a number of British stars, who all do well in their respective roles. Sharon Maiden stands out as Cleese's travel companion for much of the film; and somehow manages to look cute despite a truly awful hairstyle. Smaller British stars such as Pete Walker's muse, Sheila Keith, Alison Steadman and Eastenders' John Bardon, who would go on to star as Jim Branning in said soap opera help to liven up the supporting cast. The film does feel typically eighties, but stays away from the more silly side of the decade's cinema and many of the jokes bend more towards the intellectual side. The film is in very good humour throughout, and therefore offers an enjoyable time for its audience. Seeing John Cleese deliver an assembly towards the start will no doubt remind anyone that was schooled in England of that time, and Clockwise does a very good job of presenting it's plot and setting. Overall, this film comes highly recommended to anyone that enjoys fun films.

In "Clockwise" John Cleese plays a character who has much in common with Basil Fawlty from the television series "Fawlty Towers". Like the manic Torquay hotelier, Brian Stimpson is a control-freak who finds his own life going out of control. The headmaster of a small-town comprehensive school, he is a stickler for discipline, with a particular obsession with punctuality. He is the sort of man who knows the school timetable off by heart; upon seeing a pupil idling about the school he can instantly tell that pupil exactly what lesson he or she should be attending at that precise moment. (The school is, in an in-joke, named after the famous English clockmaker Thomas Tompion).

Stimpson is disliked by his pupils and staff, who see him as authoritarian and patronising, but he is evidently held in high regard by the wider teaching profession, because he has been elected Chairman of the prestigious Headmasters' Conference. The film tells the story of what occurs on the day on which Stimpson is due to address the annual meeting of the Conference in Norwich. Things start to go wrong when, due to his misunderstanding what he is told by a ticket-collector at the station, he finds himself on the wrong train and ends up missing the train he should have caught. Told that there will not be another train to Norwich for several hours, he decides to make the journey by road and returns home, only to find that his wife has taken the car. He meets Laura, one of his sixth-form pupils, and in desperation persuades her to drive him on the 163-mile journey to Norwich. A further chain of misunderstandings leads to them being pursued across the English countryside by the police, by Laura's parents (who suspect that their daughter is having an affair with her headmaster) and by his wife (who suspects the same thing). On the way they kidnap a former girlfriend of Stimpson's whom they meet by accident, drive the car into a field and get stuck, find themselves in a monastery and, in their desperation to get to Norwich on time, end up holding up a passing motorist in order to steal his clothes, his money and his car.

The film's central joke is that a man who is so obsessed with punctuality should find himself running very late in his attempts to get to the most important meeting of his life. Although Stimpson is the sort of man that most people would automatically dislike if we were to meet him in real life, Cleese manages to arouse a certain sympathy for his character, whose sense of panic arises from a sense that he is the victim of circumstances, that the entire universe is united in a vast conspiracy to prevent him from fulfilling what should have been a relatively simple task. His desperation is increased by the remote possibility that he might just be able to get to Norwich on time. ("It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand). There can be few of us who have not had, at some time or other, a similar feeling.

Although the film is sometimes described as a farce, that word should not be taken as implying that it is a purely mechanical comedy; character also plays an important part. Fortunately, Cleese is not only a very good technical comedian- his timing in this film is superb- but also a very good character actor. (A gift shared by another ex-Python, Michael Palin). Cleese also receives good support from the rest of the cast, particularly from Alison Steadman as his long-suffering wife Gwenda and Sharon Maiden as the wild and headstrong Laura, for whom driving her headmaster cross-country is a much more interesting way of spending her day than a few hours of boring lessons.

The film is not quite in the same class as Palin's two great post-Python comedies, "The Missionary" and "A Private Function". For most of the time it is very funny indeed; for most of the first hour and a bit I was laughing out loud. (Remarkably, my wife was too- normally she loathes the Pythons and all their works). Unfortunately, the scriptwriter Michael Frayn was unable to maintain this sense of comic invention to the end. The story needed some dazzling twist to finish on, but instead it fizzles out rather tamely and the last quarter of an hour or so, after Stimpson finally arrives at the Conference, is rather disappointing after what has gone before. Nevertheless, this is still one of the better British comedies of the eighties; I certainly prefer it to the overrated "A Fish Called Wanda". 7/10

Having known my share of stuffed shirts, I was howling at the torture of John Cleese in this film. You know who all those stuffed shirts are, too: those who insist on a spotless, shiny, tidy room; who balance out their finances every day, it seems; who have carved a nice manageable life for themselves. What makes the comedy work, though, is that in spite of all the setbacks Cleese suffers, the movie doesn't take any sadistic delight in them. When the car, and Cleese, gets stuck in the mud, we all cringe at his predicament, and laugh along with him, since we'd probably be going through the same thing ourselves, but for the grace of God. No toilet humor, no toilet language. Just a madcap comedy of errors fit for all. Right!

The most surprising things about this minor classic from the mid 80's are that it was director Christopher Morahan's first film since 1969, and Cleese's character is based on a real-life headmaster! John Cleese based the character on the head of his daughter's school, and I can tell you the real life head is just as delightfully nutty as Stimpson.

Time obsessed Mr Stimpton, head of an ordinary British state school finds himself chairman of the Headmasters Conference and has to get to Norwich to address their meeting. Everything goes wrong on the way, despite Stimpson's meticulous planning, and due to his obsessive nature he gets more and more frayed at the edges as things go wrong.

There are some great observations on human nature in a film which moves quick enough to keep you laughing but not so quick that you miss anything.

Not perhaps Cleese's very best work, but a minor classic nevertheless. Generally under-rated as most have already said. Chris Morahan went onto continue his film directors career with the excellent thriller "Paper Tiger" in 1990, among others.