Themes: Tortured Genius, Dangerous Friends, Writer's Life
Main Cast: Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave, Wallace Shawn, Julie Walters
Release Year: 1987
Country: UK
Run Time: 110 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
This unadorned biography of playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman) charts his bawdy, dangerous relationships. Alfred Molina plays Orton's brutish lover, Kenneth Halliwell, a pathetic figure who becomes horrific and then tragic before the film is over. The hilarity of scenes from such Orton plays as Loot and What the Butler Saw is evenly balanced by the bleakness of the playwright's tormented (and tormenting) off-stage existence, which ended suddenly at age 34 with half a dozen blows to the head from a hammer. Prick Up Your Ears is based on the book by theater critic John Lahr, who is played in the film by Wallace Shawn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
A playwright whose career was as brilliant as it was brief, Joe Orton made his name with plays whose anarchic quality mirrored the tumult of his own life. Brash, unapologetically homosexual, and possessing unbridled cheek, Orton was a vibrant personality, merrily jeering in the face of proper society until he died suddenly and violently, bludgeoned to death by his longtime lover, Kenneth Halliwell. The story of Orton's life would be easy to sentimentalize or sensationalize, but director Stephen Frears focuses on a portrait of what was essentially a very bad marriage. As told in flashbacks from the vantage point of Orton's agent (Vanessa Redgrave) and biographer (Wallace Shawn), the conclusion of Orton and Halliwell's relationship is a foregone one; what remains is for the viewer to sit back and watch the water come to a boil. Much of the film's strength can be found in Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina's portrayals of Orton and Halliwell. Oldman bears an uncanny resemblance to the playwright, and his performance is sexy, dangerous, and utterly compelling. Molina invests Halliwell with the needy gloom of an unwanted lover; the wary hurt in his eyes tells us all we need to know about where he's headed. Their moody, ever-shifting relationship mirrors the mercurial transformation of the stuffy 1950s into the swinging 1960s; there is exhilaration to be savored, but also the bitter taste of chaos lurking beneath. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
Frances Barber - Leonie Orton; James Grant - William Orton; Lindsay Duncan - Anthea Lahr; Janet Dale - Mrs. Sugden; Dave Atkins - Mr. Sugden; Simon Adams - Undertaker's Boy; Selina Cadell - Miss Datersby; David Cardy - Brian Epstein; Noel Davis - Philip; Neil Dudgeon - Policeman; Richard Ireson - Man Outside Lavatory; William Job - RADA Chairman; Karl Johnson - Douglas Orton; Rosalind Knight - RADA Judge; Spencer Leigh - Constable; Angus MacKay - RADA Judge; Steven Mackintosh - Simon Ward; Charles McKowen - Mr. Cunliffe; Helena Michell - Orton's Friend; Roger Lloyd Pack - Actor; Bert Parnaby - Magistrate; Sean Pertwee - Orton's Friend; Neville Phillips - Man in Gallery; Eric Richard - Education Officer; Stevan Rimkus - Kenneth; Joan Sanderson - Anthea's Mother; Neville Smith - Police Inspector; Linda Spurrier - RADA Instructor; Margaret Tyzack - Mme. Lambert; Charlotte Wodehouse - Janet; David Bradley - Undertaker; Jonathan Phillips - Youth Outside Lavatory; Stephen Bill - George Barnett; Jane Blackburn - Women in Gallery; Mark Brignal - Beatles' Chauffeur; Antony Carrick - Counsel; Joanne Connelly - Stage Manager; Moktar Dagmouni - Moroccan Boy; Philippa Davies - Peggy Ramsay's Secretary; Anthony Douse - BBC Actor; James Duggan - Labourer; Christopher Guinee - Publisher; Robin Hooper - Mortuary Attendant; Ahmed El-Jheur - Moroccan Boy; John Kane - Director; Julie Legrand - Gallery owner; John Moffatt - Wigmaker; Michael Mueller - BBC Actor; Stella Richman - Women in Gallery; John Salthouse - Chauffeur; Max Stafford-Clark - Honourable President; Liam Staic - Brickie; Sian Thomas - Marilyn Orton; Garry Cooper - Actor; Richard Wilson - Psychiatrist
Credit
Philip Elton - Art Director, Debbie McWilliams - Casting, Bob Ringwood - Costume Designer, Michael Zimbrich - First Assistant Director, Stephen Frears - Director, Mick Audsley - Editor, Stanley Myers - Composer (Music Score), John Harle - Musical Direction/Supervision, Harry Carroll - Songwriter, Paul McCartney - Songwriter, Stanley Myers - Songwriter, Richard Myhill - Songwriter, Elaine Carew - Makeup, Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski - Production Designer, Oliver Stapleton - Cinematographer, Ann Wingate - Production Manager, Andrew Brown - Producer, Philip Elton - Set Designer, Tony Jackson - Sound/Sound Designer, Alan Bennett - Screenwriter, John Lennon - Featured Music, John Lahr - Book Author
Listen carefully, pay close attention, as in When she heard them mention her boyfriend she pricked up her ears. This term alludes to horses raising their ears at a sudden noise. [Late 1500s]
The film tells the story of Orton and Halliwell in flashback, framed by sequences of Lahr researching the book upon which the film is based with Orton's literary agent, Peggy Ramsay. Orton and Halliwell's relationship is traced from its beginnings at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Orton starts out as the uneducated youth to Halliwell's older faux-sophisticate. As the relationship progresses, however, Orton grows increasingly confident in his talent while Halliwell's writing stagnates. They fall into a parody of a traditional married couple, with Orton as the "husband" and Halliwell as the long-suffering and increasingly ignored "wife" (a situation exacerbated by Orton's unwillingness, in 1960s England, to acknowledge having a male lover). Orton is commissioned to write a screenplay for The Beatles and Halliwell gets carried away in preparing for a meeting with the "Fab Four", but in the end Orton is taken away for a meeting on his own. Finally, a despondent Halliwell kills Orton and commits suicide.
"Prick Up Your Ears" was to be the title of an unreleased play by Orton; Ironically, Halliwell, who had provided many of Orton's titles throughout his successful years, suggested the title. In the title, the word "Ears" is an anagram of the word "Arse" making Prick Up Your Ears a rather blunt reference to the homosexual subject matter. It is also a phonetic play on the conjunction of "your" and "ears" to produce "rears", which also alludes to gay sex.
Reception
Prick Up Your Ears received a generally positive critical reaction. All 14 reviews collected from notable publications by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes were complimentary of the film. Oldman's portrayal of Orton was particularly well received, and earned him a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actor.[1][2]
While the film has enjoyed positive popular critique, there have been descenting voices among scholars and the gay community. This has to do with the focus given to the death of Orton. In his book Because We're Queers (1989) Simon Shepherd refers to how biographer John Lahr was besoted with the death, and that is reproduced in the film - the film beginning with that event.[4] Furthermore, the film's inclusion of Lahr as a character would seem not so much to raise the question of the 'construction' of the Orton myth but to reinforce Lahr's role in constructng such a myth. Ironically, Lahr's research into the difficulties of Orton and Halliwell's "marriage" are supposed to be offset against the film's image of his own long-suffering and effectively silenced typist-wife. Shepherd argues that the film is clearly part of the "Orton industry" because it cannot free itself of the Lahr-viewpoint. Furthermore, the casting of Redgrave in the role of Ramsey offers the impression of an open-minded and independent woman - endorsed by Redgrave being well known for her radical leftist political views - yet in Orton's own diaries she is portrayed as being "bitchy" about Halliwell and not always favourably regarded by Orton.
