Derek and Clive Get the Horn

.... and we love every minute of it. Lord Longford and Richard Branson also get a mention.

Lewd and lascivious behaviour, drinking, drug-taking and a non-stop torrent of abuse make this the most hilarious film I've ever seen.

Someone once described this recording, the filmic version of Ad Nauseum, as "Pete and Dud on acid." This is hilarious. It's crude and shocking and clever and insightful. In years to come, this'll be a profoundly interesting social document. If any "film" ought to be blasted off into space for aliens from the planet Z to find and watch, then this is it. I'll bet they'd laugh their socks off at it as well.

Derek and Clive is for those who love that feeling you have at 3am when there is only half an inch left from the Tesco's scotch, and 8 fags left from your 100 regal. Basically, this is Pete and Dud on booze and hash, the performers Peter Cook and Dudley Moore reach a career and cultural high point as political correctness and taboo are dismissed by characters you probably would not like to encounter in real life though you can imagine the kind of individuals they are mocking; the kind of individuals who are running and ruining the world today. The essence of the performance is to simply combine the liberating effects of alcohol (which is consumed before and throughout the recording, concealed in coffee mugs) with their own vocal talents, creating an imaginary 'radio play' type world full of filthy perverts and leering homosexuals. The improvised feel of the film accommodates the many anarchic digressions and cutaway scenes, though largely the comedy is generated in improvised skits where the two assume characters (Usually Cook as the intellectually and physically dominant, and Moore as an inferior.) Cook, although in top form seems to be continuing some sort of personal attack on Moore, although this may simply be a key to outlining the chemistry between the two, which eventually moves from the stool in front of the mikes and over to the piano and drum kit, where Moore the piano virtuoso improvises a mock opera.

A little slow to begin with but working up to genius and a strong sense of fraternity between the performance and viewer,' Derek and Clive get the horn' will continue to astonish it's viewers for as long as a film with such normally unacceptable behaviour and dialogue remains as it is, a hidden gem, which when discovered, provides a magic tonic for both the intellect and the frustrations and contrivance of political correctness.

The brilliance of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as a double act has never fully been apreciated. Most of the famous sketches are from Not only But Also, but the funniest ones come from the Derek and Clive tapes. Derek and Clive Get the Horn is the Jewel in the comical crown for both Cook and Moore as comedians. It is also something of a last hurrah. Although both men would appear together again over the years, this was the last original performance they gave together, and it rarely came, excuse the pun, funnier than this. Dud is at his giggling funniest best and Pete cracks Dud up with his waspish dry wit throughout. Overall not a movie to show grandma on Boxing day, or any other day come to that. Come to think of it its best you watch it on your own. With the curtains drawn, at Two 0 clock in the morning. And it was directed by Russel Mulcahey! Good GOD

Favourite sketches : Mother, Horse Racing, Songs and Schoolboy. Just so you know i have seen it and iam not making it up!

A classic

I describe this as disturbing not because of the material but because of what this film showed of Peter Cook. I liked Ad Nauseam as an audio piece of work and was quite excited at the prospect of seeing this. However I found the experience of watching this just depressing. It's not funny and Peter Cook comes over as a very bitter character. In public Cook needed to be constantly mocking everything around him. I'm sure psychiatrists could spin a few theories as to why he was like this. He did actually visit a psychiatrist for many years the reason being, according to himself, that he had been putting on silly voices for so long he didn't know who he was. It's a self defence mechanism to be constantly funny and to belittle anyone who dares to be serious about life. Of course Cook was a genius, there is absolutely no doubt about that. However he was a genius in quite a narrow way. What he was good at he was the best at: being incredibly witty and spinning wonderful flights of surreal fancy. Sometimes his flight of fancy had an almost childish innocent charm and sometimes they were dragged up from the lowest depths of the human psyche.

Dudley Moore was a huge talent in his own right but on Peter Cook's turf, improvisational comedy, he only just managed to keep up. It's to his credit that he managed to play Cook's game at all, most of us would have just sat in awe, too intimidated to speak. However Dudley Moore had a wonderful talent of his own which was comedy acting. Peter Cook as a comedy actor stunk, let's be honest. He was the king of off the cuff quick fire genius but if he had to work to script, with the exception of 3 minute comedy sketches, he fell flat. He couldn't do what Dudley had achieved in Hollywood and he knew it. Dud was no longer his verbal punch bag and had out grown him in every way.

Dudley Moore looked to me like he hated every moment of this film and he seemed bored by and embarrassed of the obscenity. Not surprising considering he was 44 years old. This film charts the disintegration of both their professional and personal relationship. Dudley Moore didn't show up for the third day. I think they performed live together only once more after this but only after one of the Pythons, John Cleese I think, begged Dud to do it.

When I heard Cook's "cunt kicker in" monologue on audio I found it very funny because of the sheer extremity. Derek and Clive at their best were cathartic for the audience and liberating. Not because we are laughing at the idea of a man really committing such an act but because there is a psychological release to hear such things. When all is said and done they are only words and no matter what we say out loud it doesn't matter. Nobody really gets hurt and our head doesn't fall off.

However seeing Cook saying this and other material wasn't funny. It was dark and weird. This film leaves us with a sense that Cook had, at least at that point in his life, a major problem with women. He seems to be exorcising some very deep and very dark part of his own soul. To find such material funny we are trusting in the artists intelligence and decency. We have to believe that for the artist the material is nothing more than empty ridiculous words chosen to break every taboo that society has. I believe that earlier Derek and Clive was a joyous exploration of all the things we aren't supposed to say. However by the time this film was made Cook's misogyny, alcoholism and jealousy of Dudley Moore were destroying both him and his profound and wonderful talent.