Released on Blu-ray by Studio Canal’s Vintage Classics label this week is Nothing But the Best, a rather undervalued and little seen black comedy from 1964 that stars Alan Bates. An adaptation by Frederic Raphael of a short story by American mystery writer Stanley Ellin, the film is directed by Clive Donner and boasts cinematography from a young Nic Roeg. It’s the kind of murderous satire about climbing the social ladder that I imagine has fans in both the Morrissey and the League of Gentleman teams.
Set at a point when London’s pendulum began its swing, the film charts the irresistible and ruthless rise to the top of ambitious estate agency worker James “Jimmy” Brewster (Bates). Realising that talent isn’t enough to scale the ladder, a chance meeting with a down-on-his-luck bona fide bounder by the name of Charlie Prince (played by the inimitable Denholm Elliott), affords him the opportunity of some Pygmalion-like schooling in exchange for room and board. Taking James under his wing, Prince begins to educate him in the ways of the old school tie until his protege can infiltrate the “Old Boys” network all by himself, at which point the idle, freeloading master becomes surplus to requirements …
This is definitely a film of its time because it explores key themes and popular obsessions within British society during that period. I haven’t read Ellin’s original short story, nor can I find out much about it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it bears little relation to this adaptation. I can well imagine Raphael relocating the narrative to England and mining it for the contemporaneous social flux that was occurring in British society in the 1960s. Nothing But the Best is a film about how a young man from working class origins can benefit from the greater social mobility of the sweeping reforms brought in by Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government, but whose redbrick status means that there will always be a glass ceiling from which they can go no further – forever on the outside looking in at the chinless wonders who represent ‘old money’. There’s a very literate nature to Raphael’s screenplay, with its echoes of Bonnie Prince Charlie and James I in the two lead characters names, their local being called The Young Pretender, and their lodgings being on Marlborough Road – all reflect the central theme of outsiders trying to break into the inherited established order.
This is definitely a film of its time because it explores key themes and popular obsessions within British society during that period.
There’s a delicious bisexual undercurrent to between Elliott’s Prince and Bates’ Brewster that’s given added currency and weight when you consider the sexuality of the two actors. I think it’s implicit in the film itself that Prince is not in the least bit interested in the fairer sex, as witnessed by the short shrift he gives Brewster’s landlady, Mrs March (Pauline Delaney), when it becomes clear she’s taken a shine to her lodger’s new flatmate. Spurned, she becomes so hostile towards Prince that, when Brewster does the deadly deed and strangles him (with the old school tie of course), she’s all too willing to be complicit in the cover-up. It’s interesting to consider Brewster’s sexuality in terms of motivation as, despite the film opening with him chasing the office telephonist, he doesn’t refer to her in any glowing terms. When he does set his sights on a woman, Ann (Millicent Martin), she’s inevitably the daughter of his employer, Mr Horton (Harry Andrews), making this romance arguably the end game in his meteoric rise, rather than an example of a genuine love affair. Likewise, his capitulation towards Mrs March’s amorous advances only occur when she’s of benefit to him by disposing the body and keeping mum.
As the credits roll I’m left to consider the central message of Nothing But the Best. Is it a blackly satirical second cousin to the kitchen sink/new wave movement that celebrated the ambition and contempt found within angry young men (like Room at the Top‘s Joe Lampton), or is it actually a warning sign to the privileged elite, that such men are coming over the manicured lawns of their country homes to take what they want by virtue of sheer, blunt force? In all likelihood, it’s a bit of both.
Extras include interviews with Frederic Raphael and Clive Donner, a stills gallery, and a trailer.
Nothing But The Best is out now on Studio Canal Cult Classic Blu-Ray
