Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop.
There are few movies that set a tone as firmly and completely as The Ruling Class does in its opening 15 minutes. In those first minutes, we are introduced to the 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews), a judge, who proposes a toast to the awesomeness that is England at a large gathering. He then returns home and speaks to Tucker (Arthur Lowe), his butler, while tossing aside his clothing. We learn here that all of the Earl’s sons have been killed one way or another overseas, which means he must remarry despite his more advanced years, thus providing an heir. Then, out of nowhere, Tucker provides the Earl with a silk noose, which he hangs over the bed. The Earl dons an admiral’s uniform and a white tutu and proceeds to asphyxiate himself in a piece of sexual oddity, but eventually slips off the ladder and hangs himself accidentally. It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s twisted, and it sets up the rest of the film as well as can be imagined.
The sudden death of the 13th Earl leads to the introduction of Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney (Peter O’Toole), the 14th Earl of Gurney. The problem is that Jack is completely insane, having been institutionalized for the last eight years. Specifically, Jack believes he is the human incarnation of Yahweh, he is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Upon becoming the Earl, he trades out his coarse monk’s robes for a white suit, but keeps the Van Dyke and the flowing locks and sleeps standing upright on a cross, his hands firmly gripping a pair of nails.
