How to get Ahead in Advertising

How to get Ahead in Advertising

How to get Ahead in Advertising

Dennis Dimbleby Bagley is a brilliant young advertising executive who can’t come up with a slogan to sell a revolutionary new pimple cream.

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Information

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
Rating: 15
Directed By: Bruce Robinson
Written By: Bruce Robinson
Released: 1990
Runtime: 90 minutes

Cast

Richard E Grant as Denis Dimbleby Bagley
Rachel Ward as Julia Bagley
Richard Wilson as John Bristol
Jacqueline Tong as Penny Wheelstock
John Shrapnel as Psychiatrist
Susan Wooldridge as Monica

Plot

The movie is a farce about a mentally unstable advertising executive, Denis Dimbleby Bagley (played by Grant), who suffers a nervous breakdown while making an advert for pimple cream.

Ward plays his long-suffering but sympathetic wife. Richard Wilson plays John Bristol, Bagley’s boss.

Bagley has a crisis of conscience about the ethics of advertising, which leads to mania.

He then develops a boil on his right shoulder that comes to life with a face and voice.

The voice of the boil, although uncredited, is that of Bruce Robinson. The boil takes a cynical and unscrupulous view of the advertising profession in contrast to Bagley’s new-found ethical concerns.

Eventually, Bagley decides to have the boil removed in hospital but moments before he is taken into the operating room, the boil quickly grows into a replica of Bagley’s head (only with a moustache) and covers Bagley’s original head, asking doctors to lance it, which is done since nobody has noticed the switch from left to right nor the new moustache.

Bagley, now with the boil head, moustache, and personality (the movie’s third personification from Grant after the stressed executive and the raving lunatic) returns home to celebrate his wedding anniversary, with the original head merely resembling a boil on his left shoulder.

The “boil” eventually withers but doesn’t die, yet Bagley resumes his advertising career rejuvenated and ruthless, although without his wife, who decides to leave his new cruel persona.

 

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Intimate Relations

Intimate Relations

Intimate Relations

The film depicts the hypocritically prudish residents of a seemingly respectable household who indulge in the sort of sordid goings on they would publicly sneer at.
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Information

Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: 15
Directed By: Phillip Goodhew
Written By: Phillip Goodhew
Released: 1996
Runtime: 105 minutes

Cast

Julie Walters as Marjorie
Rupert Graves as Harold
Matthew Walker as Stanley
Laura Sadler as Joyce
Holly Aird as Deirdre
Les Dennis as Maurice

Plot

The film takes place in the 1950s in the suburbs of London. The film depicts the hypocritically prudish residents of a seemingly respectable household who, behind closed doors, indulge in the sort of sordid goings on they would publicly sneer at.

Marjorie Beaslie (Walters) is a housewife in her forties who takes in a lodger named Harold Guppey (Graves), who has just stumbled into town to look up his long-lost brother (played by Les Dennis).

Although seemingly prudish (she no longer sleeps in the same bed as her husband, for “medical reasons”), Marjorie takes a liking to Harold despite him being a good twenty years her junior.

They begin to have a clandestine affair, sneaking into bed together at night. Ever since taking in her lodger, Marjorie insists that Harold refer to her as “mum”, giving more than a little oedipal slant to their subsequent lustful antics.

Marjorie’s youngest daughter is fourteen-year-old Joyce (Sadler), a precocious, Loltia-like girl who alternates between trying to act grown up by putting on make-up and smoking cigarettes, and acting childish by grossing people out with tales of medieval punishments and giggling at rude words.

 

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The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

A middle-aged spinster falls in love with a fellow resident of her boardinghouse, who mistakenly believes she has the money to help him start a new business.

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Information

Genre: Drama, Romance
Rating: 15
Directed By: Jack Clayton
Written By: Brian Moore (novel), Peter Nelson (screenplay)
Released: 1987
Runtime: 116 minutes

Cast

Maggie Smith as Judith Hearne
Bob Hoskins as James Madden
Wendy Hiller as Aunt D’Arcy
Ian McNeice as Bernard Rice
Marie Kean as Mrs Rice
Prunella Scales as Moira O’Neill

Plot

Lonely spinster Judith Hearne (Maggie Smith) teaches piano and lives in a depressing boarding house in Dublin.

Her life changes when she meets James Madden (Bob Hoskins), the enterprising brother of the owner.

She quickly falls for him and, against all expectation, finds her love returned.

As their romance develops, Judith becomes truly happy for the first time in her life.

But, when it dawns on her that James has ulterior motives for pursuing their relationship, her world comes crashing down.

 

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The Long Good Friday

The Long Good Friday

The Long Good Friday

 

An up-and-coming gangster is tested by the insurgence of an unknown, very powerful threat.

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Information

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Rating: X
Directed By: John Mackenzie
Written By: Barrie Keeffe
Released: 1980
Runtime: 114 minutes

Cast

Bob Hoskins as Harold Shand
Helen Mirren as Victoria
P.H. Moriarty as Razors
Dave King as Parky
Bryan Marshall as Harris
Eddie Constantine as Charlie

Plot

Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), an old-fashioned London gangster is aspiring to become a legitimate businessman, albeit with the financial support of the American mafia, with a plan to redevelop the (then-abandoned) London Docklands as a venue for a future Olympic Games.

The storyline weaves together events and concerns of the late 1970s, including low-level political and police corruption, IRA gun-running, displacement of traditional British industry by property development, UK membership of the EEC, and the free-market economy.

Harold is the ruling kingpin of the London underworld, when his world is suddenly torn apart by a series of murders and exploding bombs from an unseen foe.

He and his henchmen try to uncover his attackers’ identity. His ruthless and violent pursuit of leads only points out the small-time tawdriness of the organisation he hopes to legitimise.

He discovers his closest aide accidentally became involved with the IRA in a side-job gone wrong, and stole £5000 from the IRA, as well as killing several IRA men – for which the IRA holds Harold responsible.

He acts on the information with the same brutality that first took him to the pinnacle of the London underworld. He eventually approaches the local IRA members he suspects of orchestrating the violence against him.

He offers to pay them back their money, but then double crosses them while they are counting the money, and his henchmen kill them. He also meets up with the American mafia representatives, led by Charlie (Eddie Constantine).

However, they have already decided to leave England because of all the recent chaos.

When Harold leaves their hotel, he gets into his car, which he thinks is being driven by his chauffeur but has been taken over by two IRA men. As the car speeds away Harold is silent, but his face displays a range of emotions.

 

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The Missionary

The Missionary

The Missionary

After 10 years of missionary work in Africa, the Rev. Charles Fortesque is recalled to England, where his new assignment is as minister to London’s prostitutes.

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Information

Genre: Comedy
Rating: 15
Directed By: Richard Loncraine
Written By: Michael Palin
Released: 1982
Runtime: 90 minutes

Cast

Michael Palin as The Reverend Charles Fortescue
Maggie Smith as Lady Isabel Ames
Trevor Howard as Lord Henry Ames
Denholm Elliott as The Bishop
Michael Hordern as Slatterthwaite/Narrator
Graham Crowden as The Reverend Fitzbanks
David Suchet as Corbett

Plot

Church of England Reverend Charles Fortescue (Palin) works as a missionary in Africa for ten years, then returns to England in the spring of 1906.

As the ship docks, a fellow passenger, later identified as Lady Isabel Ames (Smith), bumps into him by accident.

Charles is to wed Deborah Fitzbanks, the daughter of a fellow clergyman. She was only a child when he left, but is now a young woman eager to be married and have lots of children; however, she dislikes being touched by him.

The Bishop of London gives him a new assignment, to set up a mission to rescue the women of the evening who frequent the London Docklands, but cannot offer him any funding.

To assist him, Deborah writes to Lord Ames, the richest man in England. Charles reluctantly calls at their enormous mansion. The place has so many rooms, Slatterthwaite, the longtime butler, constantly has trouble finding his way about. He does eventually manage to bring Charles to the Ameses.

Lord Ames loathes missionaries (among other things), but Lady Ames is inclined to contribute, especially as she finds him attractive (and tells him so).

Somewhat alarmed, Charles tries to leave, but she insists he spend the night.

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