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Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780780025752
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 078002575X
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Criterion
Release Date: June 04, 2002
Running Time: 95 minutes
Sales Rank: 36005
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: November 11, 1958
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Editorial Review:
Description:
In Ronald Neame's film of Joyce Cary's classic novel, Alec Guinness transforms himself into one of cinema's most indelible comic figures: the lovably scruffy painter Gulley Jimson. As the ill-behaved Jimson searches for a perfect canvas, he determines to let nothing come between himself and the realization of his exalted vision. A perceptive examination of the struggle of artistic creation, The Horse's Mouth is also director Neame's comic masterpiece.
Amazon.com:
Alec Guinness was in the full bloom of his stardom when he suggested, scripted, and starred in this wonderfully odd 1958 adaptation of Joyce Cary's novel. As Gulley Jimson, a gravel-voiced, antisocial painter, whose artistic drive is as single-minded (and as self-absorbed) as a terrier's, Guinness sketches one of his carefully constructed marvels. The film has a bumpily episodic structure, but when it works, it really works: Gulley inhabiting (and mostly destroying) a penthouse apartment when the upper-crusty owners go on holiday for six weeks, or marshaling an army of apprentices to create a masterpiece on a giant wall in a condemned building. Departing from the novel, Guinness concocted the movie's madcap ending, which is guaranteed to bring a smile. Adding verve is the music, adapted from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé, which fits Gulley like the paint under his dirty nails. The artworks, vivid and thick, are by John Bratby. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - SCARCE FILMS UNOBTAINABLE.
I SAW THIS MANY YEARS AGO AND SO FAR AS I KNOW ITS NEVER BEEN REPEATED,WHY?
Rating:  - One of our all-time favorites
This film has the vision of the great novel on it's based on and is one of Alec Guiness's very best. The music, the scenes, the art, the faces of the characters as they come to their moments of personal trial--all amazingly memorable. Wiley, deep-souled Guiness and a great if little known cast. Mad, comic, glorious, sweet, and bitter-sweet. If you have and romantic leanings when it comes to artists, I think you'll love this book. If you're a fan of visionary William Blake you'll REALLY love it. It's also one of the best cameo portraits of Britain right after World War II. Take Me With You When You Go
Rating: - masterpiece by the old master
I bitterly regret that I completely missed seeing or even hearing about this movie until fifty years after it came out. All the movie critics and pundits I have listened to for all those years should hang their heads in shame. This movie belongs in every top twenty list and many top tens. I only found it by accident while browsing through my Netflix recommendations, but I am so glad I picked it.
I hope that Charlie Chaplin had a chance to see this movie while he was still alive because it has all the qualities that make for great slapstick. The hero bounces from one hilarious situation to another while spouting a mixture of witty sarcasm, profound wisdom, and general grumbling about the unfairness of the world. Only a great comic genius could have found a way to pack such a tremendous comic effect into the three words "let it go". This triggers the drop of a six foot cube of marble through the floor of the heroes borrowed studio (borrowed without the owners knowledge). This is quickly capped when the hero says that the people who live down there are in another country. The crazy sculptor who ordered the marble says, "That's okay then, I'll work down there.", throws his tools down the hole, grabs a ladder, and descends. He then spends the next six weeks carving the monstrous chunk of marble into a statue standing all of three feet tall. This sets us up for that wonderful effect of three people disappearing into a hole in the carpet, taking the carpet with them.
But, I think that ... Read More
Rating:  - Technical problem
I love this film and saw it when it first appeared in the 1950's. The DVD version (Criterion) is missing an important segment where the camera repeatedly visits the sculpture as it is chiseled away, finally down to a small scrap of marble.
The segment is important, not only for the immensity of its comedy. But also as a unique comment on the madness of the artists.
Rating: - Alex Guinness, the master
Poignant comedy about the struggle of an artist made classic through the genius of Alex Guinness.
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