De la bouche du cheval

Highly original and entertaining, this film explores the bizarre world of artist Gulley Jimson (Alec Guinness) whom we meet as he is released from jail. He's a scammer and a reprobate, but he's also a great artist who doesn't believe in art. Yet he is compelled to paint.

With the help of maybe girl friend (Kay Walsh) they try to track down the paintings sold on the cheap to pay off the debts of his former wife (Renee Houston). The art dealer (Ernest Thesiger) is a crook and has cheated everyone by telling them the paintings are worthless. So Gulley tries to find an art patron who will support him. He finds an older couple of patrons but after they go on holiday, he moves into their apartment and trashes it while he paints a mural.

Gulley is always looking for "a big wall" on which to paint his big paintings and finally finds the side of a building about to be demolished. His compulsion is so great, he MUST paint on this wall but has no money, so he "sells" sections of the wall to amateurs who combine to create a fabulous urban mural (to his design). This project seems to assuage his compulsions, but after the wall's destruction he's off to find a new horizon... or is he? This is one of Guinness' great performances. In a comic role with serious undertones, few actors were ever better than Guinness, and he grabs onto this quirky role with great gusto. Indeed, Guinness even wrote the script (based on a novel by Joyce Cary). At age 44, he's totally believable as the grizzled 60-ish artist. The great and underrated Kay Walsh turns in a ferociously funny turn as the friend he owes money to. Walsh's character lives in fury that she has been cheated and short-changed by life. Together, Walsh and Guinness burn up the screen with their acting talent.

Co-stars add just the right touch. Houston and Thesiger are old pros. Michael Gough plays the obsessed sculptor. Veronica Turleigh and Robert Coote are fun as the art patrons. Gillian Vaughan is a hoot as the model. May Hallatt is funny as the scrub woman.

A special word must be said for Mike Morgan who plays Nosey, the adoring and gangling young man who follows Gulley everywhere. Morgan is just terrific here with just the right blend of awkward youth and that special British eccentric comedic touch. In his late 20s, Morgan died suddenly of meningitis before the film was finished, and several of his scenes were dubbed by another actor.

This is a great film.

Ingenious, fun, silly, playful, entertaining, strange. All of these things represent not only the movie, but of Alec Guinness' portrayal of Gully Jimson, a grainy, foul mouthed old artist, trying to make it in life through his paintings. We're introduced to him from jail, and it unfolds in the sense where learning about him is also either liking or hating what life has brought him to be. Just make sure that you're not going to be an artist, or his protégé (who takes an awful lot of bullying). This is another forgotten film in time in that it's perfect casting, and perfect direction. It's an effortless viewing movie that will bring much satisfaction to viewers of any age, who aren't familiar with Alec Guinness' work besides the obvious. His passionate, sometimes surly characterization of a brilliant painter is one that should last for the ages.

Alec Guinness wrote the screenplay. Already an actor of great repute, in doing so he was in a very dominating position. The film gives the impression of a much less collaborative affair - writer/director/star - than is usual, or successful. Very hard for director to question a portrayal when the star can truthfully say that he knows the character far better than does the director.

Guinness chose a deep croaky voice. He consequently lost all musicality - most obviously when he sings but throughout his voice is an inexpressive monotone. The dialogue lacks sparkle further dulled by his monotone. There is a problem in any case of portraying a talented but inarticulate artist - how do you indicate talent or even genius? Apparently based on the writer Dylan Thomas, whose drunkenness was companionable (Richard Burton once a companion?), there was no doubt wit in their conversation. Here the painter is mainly rascally, the paintings shown don't particularly impress either intrinsically or by the way they are treated. All that is left is the implication that for someone so badly behaved yet to still be sought after, must have a great deal of talent. The film fails to show people being won over by his pictures and forgive his trespasses - that's a failure of direction.

Given the great talents involved, it is less than it could have been. But given these talents, it should not in anyway be patronised. Even great artists get it wrong sometimes, it doesn't affect their greatness or my admiration.

Confession time, I first saw 'The Horse's Mouth' around ten or twelve years ago, one afternoon on British television and hated it. Alec's "Gulley Jimson" seemed to me to be very un-likable and I found myself unable to get the point of the film. However, re-watching this on DVD, I found it to be far, far better than I remembered and something of a revelation.

I found myself identifying with "Gulley" this time around and appreciating Alec's subtle performance (to the extent that I was genuinely sad to see the film end). Guinness is backed by two astonishingly fine performances by Walsh and Houston (it's Rene's finest performance, for someone with a tendency to play 'broad' here she is remarkably subtle).

All in all, a wonderful if sadly under-rated film and one equal to Alec's best Ealing work.

This is probably my favorite movie. It may be overstatement to call a mere British comedy a timeless classic, but this outstanding movie, beneath its raucously madcap surface, has some very serious things to say about what it means to be an artist, to be driven by visions while living in a society that doesn't care. I think Guinness is the greatest actor of the century, and that his performance here as the maddening, irascible, impossible Gulley Jimson is the zenith of his movie roles. Kay Walsh, who partnered with Sir Alec in Tunes of Glory, is equally brilliant.

Having said that, I recently read Joyce Cary's novel, on which the movie is based, and I have to say that the book is much darker than the movie, which plays up the darkly comic scenes of the novel while diminishing - or even omitting - some of the darker moments. Still, the movie stands well on its own, even if it is a somewhat different entity than the book.