The Entertainer (1960) User Reviews (47)

A life in the theater

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 18 April 2006]

Archie Rice, the fifty-something vaudeville man at the center of the action, has seen better days. He is relegated to play almost empty houses in a seaside resort of England where he lives with his second wife, Phoebe, his father Billy, and retired vaudevillian, and grown children. Archie has an eye for good looking women, the younger, the better. Archie Rice is a pathetic figure who lives in a world of his own, always scheming about who to involve for one of his new shows, that no one seems to care about.

Jean Rice, the young daughter living in London, comes home for a visit and she is horrified when she finds out what his father has turned out to be. Jean sees what Archie is doing to Phoebe when he sees his father kissing a much younger woman in a local restaurant. Archie has been trying to convince her parents about the talents Tina doesn't have, in order to take money from them to produce his new venture, which is only an idea in his wild imagination.

Tragedy strikes when young Mick Rice, who we had seen earlier as he goes to fight in the Suez conflict, is first reported being taken prisoner and eventually killed. While Phoebe goes to pieces, Archie keeps doing what he only knows what to do. His final speech to an empty theater, but directed to his daughter Jean, reveals the soul of this troubled man.

Tony Richardson made a great impression with his second directorial job. He was attuned to the work of John Osborne, one of England's best playwrights of the fifties and sixties that revolutionized the theater. Mr. Richardson is helped by the crisp black and white cinematography by Oswald Morris, who looks as sharp today as when the film was released.

The main reason for watching "The Entertainment" is Laurence Olivier. He completely dominates the action and makes us see how pathetic his Archie Rice is. Mr. Olivier knew this man, having been connected to the theater all his life. No one could have done a better job than him in baring his soul for all of us to see. Laurence Olivier shows a tender side in his scenes with Tina, the young woman who has captured his fancy, and who is so young, she could be his own daughter.

The rest of the cast is perfection. Roger Livesey, is seen as Archie's father, Billy Rice, a man that has seen a lot during his lifetime and now lives with a son that he knows is up to no good. Brenda DeBanzie is fine as Phoebe, a woman of a certain age that is losing Archie. Joan Plowright was Jean, the young daughter. Also in minor roles some actors that will go to stardom in their own right, Alan Bates, Albert Finney, and Daniel Massey, who died much too young.

"The Entertainer" is a fine film that shows the talents of Laurence Olivier and Tony Richardson.

There's No Business Like Show Business

[frankwiener · 8/10 · 2 March 2020]

While the central character has sadly faded as an uninspiring and outdated vaudeville performer, England itself has lost its luster in 1956. From start to finish, there is a distinct sadness not only about Archie Rice and his tragically dysfunctional family but about the once great nation and society that surrounds them. The script by John Osborne is brilliant and captures a prevailing sense of decline on many levels. Tony Richardson's direction in stark black and white enhances the overall atmosphere of psychological and financial depression. While Archie is plagued by the threat of the tax authorities, creditors, and some very disgruntled and broke members of his cast, the state of undischarged bankruptcy doesn't end with him. It extends into the dismal, grey atmosphere that surrounds him.

The time is only a short decade after the Allied victory of World War II. While the defeated nations of Germany and Japan are booming economically, what does the United Kingdom receive for having endured all of its troubles? It must suffer the loss of the Suez Canal, as just one example, and an overwhelming mood of stagnation and hopelessness that is captured in all of the films of the "Angry Young Man" movement of British cinema. If the pathetic Rice family serves as an example, British society has reached a low point of gloom and hopelessness. Anyone who wants to fulfill his or her dreams must look to Canada or Africa, anywhere except England. Oh Britannia!

The acting here is nothing less than superb on the part of the entire cast but especially from seasoned veterans Sir Laurence Olivier, Brenda de Banzie ("The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956)), and Roger Livesey ("The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp") with his incomparable, distinct voice. The setting of Morecambe, the chilly and cheerless Irish Sea resort on the west coast of England, reminds me of Atlantic City during its long period of decay, but the atmosphere here is even colder and more depressing. While the crowds may be on holiday, they seem to be very dissatisfied and therefore unhappy. Although this is by no means a "feel-good" film, the wonderful cast, the very thoughtful and thought-provoking script, and the creation of a very realistic and distinctly melancholy atmosphere combine to make this movie a very worthwhile and memorable experience.

Very good character studies, though it's tough to care about any of them

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 9 February 2007]

This film is about a not especially talented vaudeville-style actor (played by Olivier) who sings a little and does some comedy--but not especially well. It's set in some British town by the sea (probably Brighton) and is set in 1956--when this sort of low-brow entertainment was on its way out and during the Suez Incident (the younger son is sent there soon after the film begins). This actor is pretty obnoxious and brings misery to his family since he's basically no good and selfish. The film switches from his viewpoint to his daughter's (played by Olivier's soon wife-to-be, Joan Plowright). She sees again and again that he's a jerk but despite everything, she is strangely loyal to this rogue. The rest of the family is pretty much living in Olivier's shadow and caters to his every obnoxious whim. The only exception is Olivier's father--an excellent character study of a man who tries to do the right thing by everyone.

Technically speaking, this is a very good film--the actors all did a fine job and the writing was pretty good as well. The problem for me was that I just didn't feel much of a connection, as it was hard to care about any of them. Now this isn't a complaint so much as saying that this type of character study may apply to some, it's not a film that will appeal to a wide audience. I guess my problem is that I have known people like the jerk Olivier played in the film and I felt irritated with him and his family for accepting his obnoxious behaviors. Sure, this is true to life--there are people like the one Olivier played who are users and ne'r do wells and there are many family members that put up with the lies and mistreatment. In some ways, I could see the film as being very therapeutic for some--it just wasn't something I particularly enjoyed or needed to see.

Nuns, clergymen, and dogs

[blanche-2 · 8 February 2007]

Laurence Olivier is "The Entertainer," in a 1960 film based on the John Osborne play in which Olivier played one of his greatest roles, Archie Rice. He's surrounded by Joan Plowright as Archie's daughter Jean, and Brenda de Banzie as his emotionally fragile second wife, Phoebe. Olivier, Plowwright and de Banzie all repeat their stage roles, and it was while in the play that Olivier and Plowright met, fell in love, married, and stayed together until his death. Albert Finney is Mick and Alan Bates is Frank, Archie's sons, and Roger Livesey is Billy Rice, Archie's father and a beloved, well remembered music hall performer. Daniel Massey plays the role of Graham. It's an auspicious cast of veterans and newcomers.

Archie has followed in his father's footsteps with a lot less success. He's a second-rate entertainer - and that's being kind - in a seaside resort - and his show is in trouble. Archie's in trouble, too, as he's an undischarged bankruptcy and everything is in his wife's name. He's a fairly overt womanizer, which makes his wife a wreck. She's afraid of dying alone and wants the family to move to Canada and join a successful relative in the hotel business. But Archie won't give up following every dream in spite of some harsh realities. He takes up with a 20-year-old second prize beauty contestant - her father's rich and can back his new show.

As I read through the reviews on IMDb, I have to wonder where some people's hearts are. That's not a comment on the people, believe me, rather on the world we live in. I can tell you this - if you think what Olivier does isn't special and can't understand why he was nominated for an Oscar, if you can't see that he is Everyman, if you can't see the comment on Britain in general - you just haven't lived enough yet. You'll see this film again one day and it'll hurt, believe me. There can't be anyone my age, especially with ambition and a creative mind, who can't understand what Archie Rice is going through. Though he's in no way a sympathetic character, one can empathize with his life and begrudgingly admire the fact that he refuses to take the easy way out.

Jean, since she doesn't live full time with this bad road company version of "Long Day's Journey Into Night" - i.e., her family - is sympathetic to both Phoebe's hysteria and her father's delusions. The scene over the cake - one of the reviewers on the board found it disturbingly realistic - there's someone who knows dysfunction when he sees it. A brilliant scene, but nothing beats Archie's monologue to his daughter when he asks her to look at his eyes. "I'm dead," he says.

Olivier has said this is his favorite character as it contains so much of him. It's obvious from interviews with Olivier that it does. Like many highly successful people, he began to see himself as Archie, a kind of fake who, as Archie says, can be warm and smiling and feel nothing. "It's all tricks," Olivier told writer Jack Kroll once. It's not an uncommon feeling. It wasn't all tricks, of course, and as we see in Archie's final version of the song that ran through the film, "Why Should I Care?" he had finally reached the part of himself that makes a truly great artist, like the woman he heard sing the spiritual. Olivier, of course, hit those heights many times.

England is pronounced as a "dying country" in the beginning of the film, which sets up the metaphor of Archie as a symbol of the country. I'm not British - it's for those who lived during that time period in 1960 to comment on it, and they have. There are some brilliant reviews on the board covering that subject.

"Why Should I Care?" Archie sings. I don't have an answer. But if anyone could make me care, it was always Lord Laurence Olivier, be he the ruined man in "Carrie," the beautiful Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights," James Tyrone on stage in "Long Day's Journey," or Max de Winter in "Rebecca." An amazing legacy, one in a million - don't miss him as Archie Rice in "The Entertainer."

the angry middle aged man

[christopher-underwood · 7/10 · 7 September 2018]

Absorbing, involving, lightening and amusing but then this is adapted from a John Osborne play and even the cinematic opening up and the seeming insensitivity of director Tony Richardson cannot take that away. Instead of a tight and dark tale of a washed up entertainer against the background of a post war, washed up Britain embroiled in a hopeless Suez fiasco, the emphasis is more on family break-up and the last days of Music Hall. Lawrence Olivier is fantastic and Alan Bates excellent in his first film. Albert Finney is effective in an early role but Joan Plowright and Roger Liversey seem out of place in such a film. Opening up the film version, of course, means we get plenty of locations shots of Morecombe and Blackpool but is rather a shame that the full impact of the angry middle aged man and the farewell to old England gets a little lost along the way.

some folks should just stick to Disney

[nuntukamen · 10/10 · 14 May 2005]

One of the best British films of the sixties, The Entertainer was written as an allegory of Britain's fall from grace by the leading fist-shaker of England's band of Angry Young Men who stormed the London stage with revolutionary new ideas and content, John Osborne. While Look Back In Anger is a more decorated play, this film adaption by Osborne and Nigel Kneale carried the flag of teeth-crunching kicks that the gang of young playwrights hoped to startle the daylights out of England with. Reading the other viewer comments, it is obvious most folks were looking for a Disney story with a Shakespearean performance by Lawrence Olivier. A happier ending? Great Britain forgot to supply one, Andy up there in the mountains somewhere, and the seedy digs were meant to be depressingly seedy, as was the dwindling talent of the family, and its reliance in the end on the grand old name and the grand old accomplishments of the past, as Archie Rice gave his best in replacing his revered father, Billy. Note his offkey performance in singing early on and then the eloquent on key final rendition of "Why Should I Care" as the final performance ends not with a curtain call, but with the hook, as the theater management (those other nations running the world today) angrily demand that Archie get off the stage because he is through, finished, washed up, fired, kaputsky, so long and goodbye. From the direction of Tony Richardson to the selection of grand old places along the sea that Britain once ruled with absolute certainty, everything and every moment of this film are topnotch. The aforementioned slandered scene with Roger Livesey as the Grandfather, Billy Rice, and Brenda de Banzie as Phoebe Rice, involving a misunderstanding over a piece of cake, is one of the most moving and depressingly realistic family arguments ever written. It may not be Olivier's greatest performance ever, but for certain it is the best one ever filmed. It also features the film debut of two actors who would establish themselves among the very best performers Great Britain has offered us, Alan Bates and Albert Finney, along with the introduction of Joan Plowright. As for the unkind comment about Olivier marrying Joan Plowright and this somehow having an ironic similarity to the theme of Archie and his young women; they married in 1961 and REMAINED together until Olivier's death in 1989, which is completely the opposite of the point made in the story. Well anyone is allowed to be in error, but this great film has to rank with our own country's Night of the Hunter as one of the most misunderstood films of all time. Don't miss it,ever, and MGM Vintage Classics has issued an excellent DVD edition.

Are You Trying To Be Funny?

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 1 December 2009]

Olivier is Archie Rice, an obsolescent music hall singer, comic, and promoter, in Blackpool, a relatively elaborate resort town on the Irish Sea. There's an amusement park, a pier, caravans, thrilling rides, a ferris wheel, and the modest apartment in which Olivier lives with his alcoholic wife, Brenda De Banzie, his retired music-hall performer father, and his three children, one of whom, Albert Finney, is in the army and being shipped off to possible combat in the Suez. (This is 1956.) The gaiety of the resort is mostly fake from the point of view of Olivier's family. He hasn't paid his income tax for twenty years and the feds are after him, so he's desperate for money. His own show at the music hall is ailing. It looks like the kind of production that might have been popular thirty years earlier. The skimpy audiences simply sit and stare. One of the audience remarks, "Does he think he's funny?"

Well, yes, he does. Olivier is hardly ever "off", as they say. Like his ancient and good-natured Dad, he loves to tell stories, half of them made up, and make wisecracks that don't quite hit the mark. Olivier's performance -- in distinct contrast to Archie Rice's -- is unimpeachable. He has every move, every glance, down pat. He seems always to be in motion, darting here and there, cackling at his own wit, except when he's coolly calculating how to make enough money to pull him out of the hole he and his family are in.

He believes he's found it when he serves as a judge at a beauty contest, leaping up and down, yelling WHOO HOO into the microphone as the half-naked babes parade past. He seduces the runner-up, the yummy Shirley Anne Field, and discovers that her parents are interested, a little, in investing in Olivier's new show. He's given them the impression that he's a big shot.

I really didn't care much for the structure of the film. John Osborne must not have been a very happy camper. Everything that could go wrong in Olivier's life DOES in fact go wrong, a rhopalic series of disasters. The odd, tiny bubbles of happiness or satisfaction soon pop. I swear, the single unalloyedly good thing that happens to him is that he gets to spend an afternoon rolling around in the sack with Shirley Anne Field, who is half his age. A little gratuitous nudity in this scene might have lent some uplift to the movie but we have to settle for her snapping her knickers, as the Brits call them, back on after the debauch.

This lacuna will leave some viewers feeling less fulfilled then they might have felt, but that's nothing compared to what Olivier's character goes through. I won't spell it all out but Murphy's law applies.

Nevertheless, I mentioned Olivier's performance because it's so finely tuned -- but then everybody is quite good. I suppose the delectable Shirley Anne Field gives the weakest performance but there is pathos in every character, whether they know it or not.

The main problem is that everything in Osborne's story seems so thoroughly desperate beneath the masks of comedy. One bad thing after another. Cripes, if I wanted tragedy I'd watch Olivier's "Othello." Not that the downbeat ending bothers Olivier much, or at least it doesn't appear to, because he sloughs it off with another would-be funny apothegm.

I wouldn't watch it too often. Not if there were any razor blades about.

From Spartacus to this role of has-been Entertainer -- amazing!

[lora64 · 10/10 · 8 July 2001]

I've seen this movie many times on tv and still feel irresistibly drawn into the realistic setting of people's humdrum lives at a British seaside resort. Some films can be viewed once and that's enough, but not this one.

All the cast members are remarkable in projecting the ordinary bleakness of the story's circumstances -- the people, time and place, their foibles, tragedies, and often futile efforts as they struggle with events. Believe it or not, I even got to like Olivier's singing of "Why Should I Care"!

A memorable, thoughtful film well worth experiencing.

Comic knows nothing but to live hopelessly for his dream

[shakercoola · 7/10 · 20 August 2018]

A British drama; A story about about a selfish, ageing, pathological vaudevillian reduced to appearing in a twice-nightly revue with dwindling audiences in a seaside English town. This film adaptation of John Osborne's stage play, has an undertone akin to the state of post-Imperial Britain in the mid-1950s, feintly symbolising a fading, bankrupt post-WWII Britain. The film has a pedestrian pace and is a bit melodramatic in the first act, but it showcases a great ensemble of talented British character actors. Laurence Olivier man gives an Academy Award nominated performance of a character rich in tragedy though somewhat mannered for a down-on-his-luck third rate song-and-dance man.

An extraordinary film

[barefoot-gal · 10/10 · 14 June 2006]

It is amazing to me how many critics and reviewers of this film seem to have missed the subtleties in this story, and in Archie's character. Far from living in a world of futile fantasies, I think, Archie's character is much more accurately expressed by the line "The only thing I know how to do is to keep on keeping on." All available options (Canada, failure, escape, or perhaps, suicide) being unthinkable, what choice has he but to chase another hopeless dream of somehow, finally, nailing a successful show? Perhaps I identify with Archie more strongly than many viewers, having myself been at the helm of a sinking ship (a business.)

One unreasonably scathing critic (did he actually watch this film??) commented on Archie's daughter, Joan's, "blind love" for her father. I think it was not "blind love" at all, but a recognition of the (probably useless) courage Archie has to muster to continue to face each day -- a day likely to hold for him only more demoralizing failure and unceasing accusation and blame. And far from being totally selfish, as some commentators have written, Archie really seems to be the only person in the family able to look beyond the extremely small focus on their own interests: he is, in fact, the only person in the Rice tribe making a real effort, despite the pain, to find a path out of the mess to a place of security for them all.

Perhaps we have forgotten how dependent families were in that era on the earnings of "the breadwinner," and yet, reviewers seem to have been just as blind as many wives and families of that time to what a man often had to give up in order to be that breadwinner, including, as in Archie's case, any fantasies of greatness or even, finally, his last shreds of self-esteem. Was Archie aware of his utter failure? Oh, I think absolutely so. This is why his admission to his daughter that he was "dead" behind his eyes. All the brightness of hope or illusions of personal excellence have been hammered out of him on the iron-cold anvil of real-world failure. Even so, he found it in him to dredge up the understanding and compassion to alleviate his wife, Phoebe's drunken crash into despair and hostility; and shore up his father's nostalgic dreams. Though, alas, the latter, too, led to yet another "unforgiveable" tragedy (-- or was it?.

The most exquisite and poignant tragedy of it all is that maybe, just maybe, Archie might have pulled it off, but for the failure of his clueless family to understand him or the grim realities of his doomed profession. Forget metaphors of Imperial England, this tale has surely played itself out millions of times, whenever a new technology has made an old craft obsolete -- as when the printing press replaced scribes, or when electric lights eliminated the town's lamp lighter, or when automated projectors replaced skilled projectionists. Many of the movie's reviewers, in my opinion, are as blind to what is really going on here as is Archie's family. They assume that Archie's failures are the result of his negligence and selfishness, and that his dalliance with the beauty queen is a real romance (and threat to their security), when, in his eyes, it is just another, necessary, desperate and ultimately demeaning business deal. Joan alone, it seems, finally understands -- far too late to avert the inevitable end. Ultimately, every family member's myopic conception of Archie's reality leads them to take the reflexive steps that seal his doom.

Shakespeare would have been completely a home with this tragic tale, and I think it was not such a great leap away from Hamlet for Olivier.

The story is richly-detailed, unexpected and though-provoking. And Olivier is superb. A stunning performance from beginning to tragically inevitable end.

Bring on the hook

[Prismark10 · 7/10 · 30 July 2018]

Laurence Olivier reinvented himself in The Entertainer and set to work with the angry young turks of British theatre and film. A new generation of talent like John Osbourne and Tony Richardson who would had regarded Olivier as yesterday's man as this film introduces Albert Finney and Alan Bates, the next generation of great actors.

Legend has it that Olivier initially dismissed the new generation of left wing playwrights that emerged in the 1950s. When Olivier was directing The Prince and the Showgirl, Arthur Miller then married to Marilyn Monroe showed up in London and wanted to see the plays by these young up and coming talent. Olivier accompanied Miller to the theatre and after the show asked Osbourne to write something for him, the result was The Entertainer.

Olivier plays washed up music hall comedian Archie Rice. He was never as funny as his father. He has evaded paying his taxes for twenty years, an undischarged bankrupt who has not paid his co-workers and worse of all, he is not making his audience laugh.

Set during the time of the Suez crisis, the moment Britain realised they were no longer a world power. Archie's son who is in the army is kidnapped out in Egypt. He is in a loveless marriage with second wife Phoebe and as ever he has a wandering eye and at the moment shacked up with the runner up of the Miss Great Britain contest. Archie hopes her family will bankroll his next production.

Archie's family wants him to move to Canada to start a new life in the hotel business, but Archie clings on to that next big break that will never come his way. Like Britain, Archie is decaying and in decline, unable to afford the bills.

The film has an outstanding performance from Olivier. Despite the plaudits and the Oscar, Olivier knows he is fighting for his legacy by showing the new generation that he still has what it takes to blow everyone off the screen.

The film was shot on location Morecambe and Blackpool, two seaside resorts in Lancashire that were still experiencing the glory days in the early 1960s when this film was made. I used to work near the Winter Gardens in Blackpool in the late 1990s, at which time the resort were experiencing mainly day visitors and some of the old backstreet hotels were now residences for people on social security. At least it was in better shape than Morecambe, an area my work also covered. That was in need of the last rites.

How could anyone be anything but enthralled by this?

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 28 April 2013]

As an American, getting a peek at post-War Britain in decline, a look at Olivier as a most interesting character in the person of never-was vaudevillian Archie Rice, and a look at several British players (Joan Plowright, Anthony Bates, and Albert Finney) very early in their careers is priceless.

Archie Rice is a despicable character, and the drama centers on his problems of having all of his financial issues - including some long overdue tax debt - come to a head just as he can finally get no more work as a vaudevillian even in the bad music halls. He has a way out - one of his relatives will pay off his debts if he'll accept his drunken wife's nephew's offer to run a motel in Canada. But like any Briton who can remember England's finer days he's just not about to cut and run, and even though I can despise the lying, the cheating on his used up wife, his odd ideas about parenting, and his willingness to use his own father, I can't help but admire his "pioneer spirit" to use an American term. He'd rather fail on his own terms than succeed on someone else's.

Joan Plowright is the other lead, and she plays Archie's daughter, Jean. She shows some pioneer spirit herself. She shares some characteristics with dad - she's a painter who can't paint, Archie's a vaudevillian who can't entertain. Unlike dad, she owns up to her shortcomings and wants to make a contribution anyways by teaching art to poor slum kids. She has a way out of Britain just like dad does. Her fiancé has been offered a job opportunity in Africa, and he encourages her to leave her dead country behind, but she just isn't ready to give up on England or her family just yet. The two have a falling out and Jean goes to visit her dysfunctional family, in which she finds comfort.

I just don't get people who say that they don't like this one because it's boring, depressing, ugly. Every minute of this film held my interest and stayed with me long after I'd watched it. I think you need to have lived awhile, to have had disappointments, and to have dealt with those disappointments in ways you may not be proud of to really appreciate this film.

Olivier as you've never seen him before

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 22 April 2017]

THE ENTERTAINER is another kitchen sink drama based on a play by John Osborne. It's of note thanks to a towering central performance from an against-type and all but unrecognisable Laurence Olivier playing a seedy, sleazy end-of-pier music hall entertainer in the dying days of the industry. Olivier's character is completely horrid but also oddly enthralling; much like a train or car wreck you can't help but watch to see what unfolds.

The film is bolstered by the usual effective performances from the supporting cast members, all of whom are naturalistic and engaging in their various parts. The black and white photography brings out the coastal locations quite neatly and the film has an undercurrent of suspense that builds to a fittingly downbeat climax. For a '70s version of the same story, try Reg Varney in THE BEST PAIR OF LEGS IN THE BUSINESS.

Slice of life from the miserablist school

[son_of_cheese_messiah · 4/10 · 1 December 2017]

This once admired film has not aged well. Like so many other British films of the period, it is a bleak depressing "slice of life" kitchen sink drama. The main family, as always in these things, is deeply unhappy and held together by reasons other than love. Such things make pieces beloved of critics but are such a reduction of human relationships. There is something dissatisfying about watching a group of miserable people live miserably.

The role of Archie Rice is a somewhat iconic one for Olivier. His performance is very good. Archie completely dominates this and as usual with Osbourne he seems to be a cipher for Osbourne himself. Very self- centred. Other characters are rather under developed, particularly Archie's young love interest who seems to be introduced simply so she could appear in the movie poster, a misleading piece of fake news of the time to try and persuade potential movie goers that the film is more interesting than it actually is. The girl disappears very quickly and is never seen again.

Ultimately this is like watching a long episode of East Enders, only more depressing.

Fascinating, a must-see.

[ejpede · 25 January 2004]

"The Entertainer" is a fascinating film based on the play by John Osborne ("Look Back in Anger"); Osborne co-wrote the screenplay.

Olivier plays Archie Rice, a fading entertainer in a fading medium (music halls) in a fading empire (the Suez crisis of 1956 figures into the action).

Archie's speech to his daughter (Joan Plowright), onstage in an empty theater, about being dead behind his eyes, is especially memorable.

Along with other fine actors, Alan Bates and Albert Finney as his sons flesh out this film, which is a must-see for fans of any of these actors.

More Olivier Than We Know - The Entertainer

[arthur_tafero · 6/10 · 20 August 2021]

Laurence Olivier attempts to be a bottom of the barrel vaudeville entertainer in this depressing little film about a small-time hustler who is so pathetic, that we are supposed to feel sorry for him. But we don't; at least I didn't. The really great actors in this film are the people pretending to laugh at his horrendous jokes, and applauding for his atrociously sung songs. He was an adequate soft shoe, but that is nowhere near enough for him to be on stage for more than five minutes, much less for hours at a time. It is interesting to see what passed for entertainment during this era in British history. Archie Rice is a soulless con man with no perceptible talent except to be a burden on others. Difficult viewing, at best. Olivier tries to make him a Shakespearean figure, but fails in the attempt.

"What Do I Care"

[bkoganbing · 9/10 · 21 August 2006]

That little song that Laurence Olivier sings through out The Entertainer as part of his musical hall act really does sum up his philosophy of life.

Outside of the classics this is Olivier's greatest role and some would not even put that qualifier on his performance. Olivier retained great affection for his role as Archie Rice. He said it contained more of the real him than any other role.

That's hard to believe because what Archie Rice is is a third rate song and dance man. His father played by Roger Livesey was a great performer back in the day. But Archie never has and never will make it to the top. Think Frank Sinatra and Frank Sinatra, Jr. and you get some idea.

He's more like Willy Loman in that he's facing his midlife crisis, knowing full well he's not really accomplished all that much. Still he plods on. Unlike Willy the luckless middle-aged salesman, Archie's full of tricks. His credit is all gone, and he's planning to woo and win a young beauty who's an airhead like her mom with the object of getting their backing for a new show. He's ready to throw over wife Brenda DaBanzie without a by your leave.

The only one who Olivier has any kind of human feelings for is his daughter played by Joan Plowright. It was in the original cast of The Entertainer that Olivier first met the woman who became the third and last Mrs. Olivier. When he was made a peer in fact Joan became Lady Olivier.

In fact from the Broadway production, Olivier, Plowright and DaBanzie were the only ones from that cast who were in the film. But some rising young talent like Alan Bates, Albert Finney, and Daniel Massey all got some good first notice in The Entertainer playing Olivier's two sons and Plowright's fiancé.

The Entertainer is a downer of a film. There ain't a middle aged man who doesn't know what Archie is going through. But our sympathies are never with him. Usually that would mean one big box office flop if the audience can't sympathize or empathize. But it's Olivier's skill as a player that makes us want to see what does become of Archie.

It's an ending, but in a very minor key. Well deserved I thought.

compelling British family dysfunction

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 27 June 2022]

Archie Rice (Laurence Olivier) is an over-the-hill performer struggling to stay in the business called show. He is doing a dwindling show with scantily-clad ladies in a fading seaside resort town. His daughter Jean Rice (Joan Plowright) wants to reconnect with him after having some relationship troubles of her own. She finds her family struggling, each in their own way.

The movie captures the sense of decay in this family. It is pure family dysfunction melodrama. Olivier got an Oscar nomination. A younger Plowright seems to be holding back for most of the movie to allow the dysfunctions shine. This movie can be a grind much like the family itself. Archie's declining performances are compelling. This is adapted from a play and I do wonder if some changes could make this more cinematic. If there are fewer characters, the movie could concentrate more on the father daughter relationship. There are some big names here, both legends and future stars. It is British grim realism at work.

The entertainer is a great movie, but not easy to watch.

[denscul · 9/10 · 17 April 2006]

The underlying theme of this movie is the end of the British empire, played out in allegory with the end of a not very talented "entertainer". The poet John Mansfield a few decades before this movie was made gave Britons an inkling of what was coming. Two wars and a softness grown out of a century of milking its colonies finally had to come to end. This film is not what the average movie viewer wants, much less understands when the creators of this project reveal to the audience what lies ahead. When Archie is yanked off the stage, it is the symbolic end of Great Britan as a great power. The Suez war and Archies's son as a relic of Britan's once dominant power are a backdrop to political and military events when this film was in production. The Suez war was not backed by the US. The British learned that the day was over when it could exert influence let alone dominant military actions without US backing. Catch the line in the beginning of the film when Archie's daughter is being asked to leave" a dying country". That line establishes the events to follow, for Archie and England.

"Let me know where you're working tomorrow night . . . "

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 6 May 2021]

" . . . I'll come and see you," the old geezer on the Gurney of Death threatens the execution chamber witnesses as the final curtain shrouds down over THE ENTERTAINER. As anyone who's seen an episode of Monty Python or The Royal Family well knows, what passes for "humor" in the "British Empire" is regarded as pestilent pus among the Lands of the Living. Though England is known primarily for rotten food, rotten drink and rotten teeth, who can forget Prince Hamlet's immortal observation that "there's something rotten in London." Doubtless that moody "Royal" had just emerged from a first-run performance of the Archie Rice Show, and was vowing that it would be over his dead body if he ever saw THE ENTERTAINER again.

Uncomfortable to watch, but a masterful film of a brilliant play.

[emuir-1 · 9/10 · 29 August 2015]

barefoot-gal from United States gave a spot on review of this allegorical film. Yes, it represented the decline of the British Empire after WW2. The Egyptians had just dared to thumb their noses at Great Britain by seizing the Suez Canal, and thus showed them that the Empire was finished. Other colonies were not far behind in defying the country which they felt had exploited them for so long, for which they had no loyalty. By using the dysfunctional impoverished Rice family as a metaphor, the film showed the end of an era as the once immensely popular music hall was grinding to a halt in run down theaters in seedy seaside towns, themselves coming to the end of their hey-day as package holidays to the Mediterranean were becoming popular and affordable. Entertainment by fading vaudevillians which which would have appealed to a captive audience of servicemen and people who could not go abroad in war time no longer had appeal. The audience wanted something new.

The audience had no loyalty to a form of entertainment which had held a monopoly until alternatives arrived, just as today's audiences have deserted the cinema for TV, and now are deserting TV for DVD's and Internet downloads. Supermarket checkouts have replaced individual service in groceries, and on line retailing is replacing department stores. Why should they care? Those who cannot adapt, perish.

Archie Rice is the son of a popular music hall star of the Edwardian era, without his talent; nevertheless, it is the only life he knows and he is trying to make a living for himself and his family. We see this many times as the son of a star, with Jr. tacked on to the famous name, tries and fails to follow in his father's footsteps and cash in on his name, but there is only room for one. Archie Rice knows that he will never make it, but he has to go on as it is all he knows. As barefoot-gal noted, we are still seeing this today as proud occupations are superseded by a new technology and the skilled worker becomes obsolete.

Archie makes a desperate attempt to raise money for a new show and make himself feel he still has what it takes by seducing a beauty contest runner up whose affluent mother will put up the money in return for a role for her daughter. We never see whether she is anything more than a pretty face awed by a whiff of show biz.

Had Archie been born 20 years earlier he may well have made a good living on the halls performing the same act week after week for years as he travelled around the provinces, but there is little demand for live entertainment and millions of people are seeing a variety act at once via TV. Times are changing and he either gives in, or just goes on day after day putting one foot in front of the other and trying to hold it all together. This is a film which is uncomfortable to watch, but makes the viewer think and remember for a long, long, time. Someone referred to it as a Greek Tragedy, and I would agree.

Kitchen Sink Films Don't Do It for Me

[evanston_dad · 6/10 · 29 September 2020]

Eh, these British kitchen sink movies from the 1950s and 1960s I guess just don't do it for me.

Laurence Olivier acts up a storm and won a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as a washed up music hall performer in this dreary, depressing snapshot of post-WWII England. Joan Plowright is his daughter, and the bulk of the movie is about her navigating her contentious relationship with her dad. There are also some plot threads about one brother who's gone off to fight in a war and another brother who works for their dad's ailing musical revue. Like all of these kitchen sink films, the emphasis is on how depressing everything is. There's absolutely no levity, and no real reason to care about what happens to any of these sad people.

These movies tapped into a certain psychological state affecting Britain in the years after the war, a topic that I actually find interesting and worth exploring. But I have yet to completely enjoy one of the movies that resulted from it. I really felt my attention wandering during this one.

Grade: C

A Wonderful film with almost Greek tragedy sentiment

[Sylviastel · 10/10 · 20 May 2003]

The Entertainer is one of those great films that makes you stop and think about the has been entertainers like Archie after their heyday. I could see the relationship between Joan Plowright and Laurence Olivier evolve from the screen into a love affair. Joan is quite brilliant playing his daughter and Larry is well one of Britain's greatest treasures from the theater. I also enjoyed Dame Thora Hird's role as the mother of a contest winner. The story is rather complicated but it is richly interpreteted onto the film. We feel sorry and love Archie despite his obvious flaws and faults. We support him in the end and know why he did it? After all the show must go on. Morecambe, Lancashire is also Dame Thora's birthplace and hometown. It's great to see legends like Dame Thora Hird, Dame Joan Plowright and Lord Laurence Olivier.

Bleak and depressing

[preppy-3 · 4/10 · 23 January 2001]

If you're in the mood to be depressed, this is probably right up your alley. It's a film about sad, pathetic people living in a run-down, seedy environment and how unhappy they are with themselves and each other. It is well-acted (especially by Sir Laurence) and well-directed (I was lucky enough to see a brand-new print), but non-stop depressing. I left after an hour...I couldn't take any more than that. The good acting and direction are worth seeing, but it's SO downbeat! You've been warned.

The last, golden days of Morecambe...

[bakerjp · 13 July 2000]

As someone who lives only a couple of miles away from where this film was set, it makes me practically WEEP to see how busy and vibrant Morecambe used to be in the 50s/60s. OK, so the film is about how it's passed its heyday, but compared to how it is now - seeing the same scenery (it's hardly changed) - the Midland Hotel, The Winter Gardens (now a nightclub), it's hard not to get painful pangs of nostalgia.

This is ultimately a depressing film - Archie is one of those people who deals with tragedy by "blanking" it out with bad jokes. In the film he seduces the winner (2nd place) of a beauty contest - a woman old enough to be his daughter. Shortly after the film, Laurence Oliver married Joan Plowright who actually PLAYED his daughter in this film. Anyone for irony?

There are some wonderfully subtle takes on British "class" - I love Thora Hird (a long way from Praise Be and Stannah Stairlifts here) as the grasping mum of the Beauty-contest winner, while Brenda de Banzie is great as neurotic, looked-over, teary, nervy Phoebe - "I've got a new job in Woolworths, on the electrical counter. It's OK, but the girls are a bit common." Well Phoebe, you'll be pleased to know that the branch of Woolworths is still there...