| Otley | |
|---|---|
British theatrical poster
| |
| Directed by | Dick Clement |
| Written by | Ian La Frenais Dick Clement |
| Based on | the novel OtleybyMartin Waddell |
| Produced by | Bruce Cohn Curtis |
| Starring | Tom Courtenay Romy Schneider |
| Cinematography | Austin Dempster |
| Edited by | Richard Best |
| Music by | Stanley Myers |
Production |
Highroad Productions |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 91 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Otley is a 1968 British comedy thriller film directed by Dick Clement and starring Tom Courtenay and Romy Schneider.[1] It was adapted by Clement and Ian La Frenais from the 1966 novel of the same name by Martin Waddell, and released by Columbia Pictures.
Gerald Arthur "Gerry" Otley is a charming but feckless young drifter who scrapes a living from selling antiques in trendy 1960s London. Gerry's responsibility-free life suddenly takes a serious turn, when he finds himself caught up in a round of murder, espionage and quadruple crossing. He is mistaken for a spy, is kidnapped and detained several times, and becomes romantically involved with a foreign agent working for British Intelligence.
The exterior action takes place in a number of recognisable London locations: the area around Portobello Road street market in Notting Hill; a houseboat colony near Cheyne Walk in Chelsea; Bowater House in Knightsbridge; the Playboy ClubinPark Lane; and the old Unilever milk depot in Wood Lane. A wide range of period British vehicles is featured: Otley drives an E-Type Jaguar, a Ford Anglia and an early 1960s passenger coach, and his disastrous driving test, which turns into an epic car chase, involves a driving-school Vauxhall Viva and a Ford Zephyr.
The film, whose interiors were shot at Shepperton Studios, marked the directorial debut of Dick Clement.
Don Partridge co-wrote and performed the title music, "Homeless Bones", which was released as the B-side of his 1969 single "Colour My World".[2]
Jack Ibberson of The Monthly Film Bulletin called the film: "[a] vastly entertaining comedy-thriller", writing "the film's main asset lies in the performances, which are uniformly excellent. Tom Courtenay makes the thieving, cowardly Otley a wholly credible and sympathetic character whose all too human failings seem infinitely more acceptable than the double-dealing of the suave characters whose world he reluctantly enters. ... Courtenay's performance is a masterpiece of bewilderment ... delightful entertainment and a credit to all involved."[3]
Vincent CanbyofThe New York Times wrote, "Like Otley, the movie is a bad risk. Everything in it is borrowed and badly used – actors (Tom Courtenay, Alan Badel), situations (the triumph of the fraudulent fool) and even settings, including a rather handsome Thames houseboat that reminded me wistfully of The Horse's Mouth [1958]. Otley is the kind of movie that allows you to think about other movies, in those great gaps of time between the setting up of a gag and the moment when it is ritualistically executed."[4]
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune wrote that the film was so boring it "could put Sominex out of business"[5] and admitted to walking out on it, reporting, "I took the CTA to see Otley at the Coronet theater in Evanston. The film began at 6:15 p. m. I returned home on the 7 p.m. train."[6]
Variety wrote that "the film has an uneasy lack of a point of view and fails to focus viewer's attention on any particular character or plotline philosophy. The frantic, intentionally incoherent episodes are sometimes amusing, but too often suffer from unoriginality."[7]
Judith Crist described it as "a bright, breezy, light-handed but never lightheaded spies-and-counterspies story".[8]
InSixties British Cinema, Robert Murphy wrote, "The only British spy film which succeeds both as a comedy and a thriller is Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenais's Otley."[9]
The film won the 1969 Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Best British Comedy Screenplay.[10]
