Richard Todd is a struggling salesman/family man, with the misfortune of having his car snatched by Adam Faith. Adam Faith is a cockney-mod car thief being used & abused by a particularly venemous criminal low life, Peter Sellers.
Peter Sellers is so fucked up in this that he stomps on an old mans pet turtle, and they legit stomped on a turtle which is really fucking hard to watch and is deeply upsettling.
I mean Sellers is a very convincing villain. It definitely gets tense as poor Richard Todd attempts vigilante justice, although essentially the entire thing is just an advertisement for car insurance. Noel Willman is also great as the detective.
Whats cool is how multifaceted the scenario is for both the salesman (who from the outside to someone poorer looks like he’s got it made, but barely has grocery money), and Adam Faith’s character- who seems like a heartless thug except he’s just doing what he knows to try and escape with the equally mistreated girlfriend of Peter Seller’s - who drinks to numb herself but doesn’t have the means to leave.
Usually for a 60’s movie of this ilk, the characters are quite cartoonishly good or bad.
None of them have the means to escape their situation- and their situation is fear, manipulation, and the pressure of capitalism and greed. Which naturally all boils up violently- accompanied by a very jazzy occasional soundtrack.
Richard Todd is a struggling salesman/family man, with the misfortune of having his car snatched by Adam Faith. Adam Faith is a cockney-mod car thief being used & abused by a particularly venemous criminal low life, Peter Sellers.
Peter Sellers is so fucked up in this that he stomps on an old mans pet turtle, and they legit stomped on a turtle which is really fucking hard to watch and is deeply upsettling.
I mean Sellers is a very convincing villain. It definitely gets tense as poor Richard Todd attempts vigilante justice, although essentially the entire thing is just an advertisement for car insurance. Noel Willman is also great as the detective.
Whats cool is how multifaceted the scenario is for both the salesman (who from the outside to someone poorer looks like he’s got it made, but barely has grocery money), and Adam Faith’s character- who seems like a heartless thug except he’s just doing what he knows to try and escape with the equally mistreated girlfriend of Peter Seller’s - who drinks to numb herself but doesn’t have the means to leave.
Usually for a 60’s movie of this ilk, the characters are quite cartoonishly good or bad.
None of them have the means to escape their situation- and their situation is fear, manipulation, and the pressure of capitalism and greed. Which naturally all boils up violently- accompanied by a very jazzy occasional soundtrack.
