REVIEWED
"If it isn't the Chelsea aborigines still living in the caves I see."
- Carson (Clifford David)
You'll Never LIVE Like Common People... A swinging 60's London party ends - the morning after the revelers walk 'Night Of The Living Dead' like across a Thames bridge. They congregate later in the day at a smoky cafe, and we learn one of the arts sets bohemian members Melina's wealthy American fiancée Mr. Carlson's due to come and whisk her away to the swanky States. Only her artsy limey beatnik friends are against the idea of a corporate type taking one of their own away. And play a series of wicked games on the poor outsider, only an even more unsavory incident lurks behind the gangs behavior.
Guy Hamilton's skilfully directed somber The Party's Over (shot in 1963 unreleased due to controversy, then released cut in 1965, against he wishes of Hamilton who removed his name) is a black and white 60's youth culture drama thats heavy on the black. If you censored movies for tone alone, it would be one of the true deserved X-Cert worthy British films of the whole love generation. Oliver Reed gives a mesmerizing and typically moody performance as Moise, who gets the ladies at the click of his fingers, or most of them. Cementing once again how underrated a talent he was before the booze stripped us of his talent. Clifford David (reminiscent of a young Robert Mitchum) as Carson gives a fine turn as the Yank, as does Katherine Woodville as femme fatal Nina. Plus was heaps of fun seeing Mike Pratt 'Randall' from Randall and Hopkirk Deceased's as the drunken soul of the party.
Colour me blown away, and to think I only watch this because it was part of TimeOut’s 100 best necrophilia films (;¬p) and also in a list I'd been working on Buy British: BFI Releases List.
[Personal Reasons For Remembering]
"I'm Peter Pan with an Hangover", "The Moral - Drive Cars Carefully" dozens and dozens of memorable quips and quotable dialog. Come down Icarus we'll catch you - laughing out loud at the medical students (clearly mannequin doll) suicide. Ohh Reed's hilarious scene he does various accents including American and French (sure, he made lots of substandard movies in his time, but boy was he one incendiary talent).
Originally taken from Letterboxd
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