Derek and Clive Get the Horn

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.

When Peter Cook died, few of his obituaries mentioned the 'Derek and Clive' albums of the mid to late 70's. They were swept under the carpet as some sort of embarrassing misdemeanor by the otherwise respectable comic genius. His ex-wife claimed that he had 'turned to the dark side' as I recall, due to drink, which she regarded as inevitable, owing to his incredible sensitivity.

Whatever. The fact remains that the Derek and Clive material might have been the product of a very different Peter Cook to the revered icon of the 60's. He was drunk, disillusioned, and harbored a white-hot fury against propriety and perhaps society in general - even including his old co-conspirator Dudley Moore, who was now just breaking into Hollywood. Despite what anyone might wish were true, the Derek and Clive material shows that Cook had lost none of his genius. Beneath the surface of the outrage and profanity is a mercurial comic mind, and an unsurpassed sense of the surreal and satirical.

'Derek and Clive Get the Horn' was filmed at the recording sessions resulting from Cook's plea to Moore to come and do one last Derek and Clive album ('Ad Nauseum'). Moore was less than enthusiastic, and even less so when Cook eventually released it (it had been on the UK prohibited films list for years), but he obliged and played the straight man one last time to Cook's stream-of-consciousness tirades.

Early on it becomes apparent just how dysfunctional the love-hate relationship between Pete and Dud had become by the time of this, their last collaboration. Cook is clearly jealous of Moore's recent success (why him? Cook knows he's the comic genius. Moore's just the boyish little guy who girls dig), and at times this fact is barely restrained. At other times it isn't restrained at all, when Cook unleashes barrages of incredibly personal abuse at Moore, which at one stage results in the latter walking out, only to be cajoled back. And at times it's clear that despite this jealousy and emnity, there is some of the old friendship and magic there; it breaks out in moments of spontaneous, boyish camaraderie. Equally, if Cook could be accused of mistreating Moore, Moore could equally be accused of staying to put up with it. The fact is, despite the personal animosity, Pete can and does crack Dudley up, and frequently reduces him to almost tearful laughter, moments after insulting him.

So much for the personal relationship business. What about the material? Well, I'm assuming that anyone who wants to chase this film down has heard at least some of the Derek and Clive material, if not the Ad Nauseum album. You know pretty much what to expect. There is extra material not featured on the album, and there is material on the album which is not shown here. What does strike you as different is the dynamic between the two performers. On the record it was clear that Cook did most of the talking while Dud just says "yeah" now and again, and that if Dud does get a story of his own going, Pete usually shuts it down and carries on with whatever he had in mind - but you really don't realize just how dominant Cook was until you see them on film. Apart from a few piano pieces which never ended up on the album, Dud is basically just there so that Pete's performance isn't a monologue.

To anyone who might be an old-time Pete and Dud fan, buying this video out of curiosity - please, be warned: this stuff burns. In the near 30 years since the Derek and Clive albums, I have honestly never heard anything which goes so far. It makes the most provocative episode of 'South Park' seem about as controversial as The Two Ronnies. It's hard to give you an example without breaking IMDb's review guidelines, but I'll try. Let's just say that far from the most offensive sketch in the movie begins with Pete describing how he was sexually aroused by the Pope's funeral on TV. "He looked so f*****g vulnerable... I couldn't prevent myself having a w*nk immediately!" And you can probably imagine where a sketch ends up, which begins with the innocent remark by Cook, "You know how it says in The Bible that Jesus was, on the whole, basically nice...?"

It's a tragic film, because Cook really was in self-destruct mode; it was the last, dysfunctional fling of a brilliant comic partnership, and Cook basically did little else for the rest of his life. It's brutal for reasons I've mentioned above, and others which I couldn't even mention here. And damn it, above all, it's terribly, terribly funny. Even on his last legs, so to speak, Peter Cook was very possibly the funniest man alive.

The film drags in places, but when it's good, it's wonderful. Horribly wonderful.

whilst as a comedy this film is very patchy and sometimes excruciatingly vulgar, what makes it watchable is the Moore/Cook relationship. Cook is by far the funnier, more dedicated and original.his quick-witted thought processes are brilliant though i did sometimes wonder if he was simply trying to be as shocking as possible simply for the sake of it. Moore often seems past caring,often simply following cook's lead but perhaps it is the strain of Cook's obvious resentment that knobbles him. certainly he seems to be struggling to keep up with Cook's genius, but then i've always felt Cook was the more talented. the material is often of a sexual nature, sometimes (mock?) misogynistic and swearing is prolific. watching this it's clear to see how comedy today is often very derivative. The horse racing sketch, for example, blows the juvenile "dicks and pussies" speech from team America out of the water. if only every drunk and stoner could be as spontaneously funny.

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.

.... 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.