The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer

It is a real shame that this film has not been released on DVD or even VHS. The remarkable thing about it is that even though it has been aired so few times, its imagery is so immediately fresh in the mind, from the bumbling assassination attempts in a JFK style by Arthur Lowe, to the 'First British Gold Bar' extracted from the north sea.

This film is about manipulation and orchestration from the start to the end !! done with a very dry and British style sense of humour.

The manipulation and 'Spin' of the Political Party Broadcast filming - who could not forget the scene with the rotating countryside backdrop and tread mill - BRILLIANT!! The guile of a Prime Minister who offers the nation the right to decide on every issue -with the piles of paper work such referendums incurred - to the ultimate presidential / dictatorship power gained from the final referendum.

The film as many people have mentioned before may not have a plot, in fact it is more like a documentary at times, but it is wholly unimportant. Its content is a precise satire of the government and issues at the time of production - preceding the change to decimalization - entry into the EU and the discovery of oil in the North sea, the general feeling of social discontent and mistrust in Government that was brewing and what would almost prophetically occur several years later.

One possible reason for its lack of public viewing could be because Peter Cooks brilliant genius cut close to the bone, unashamedly attacking the political processes and media circuses that surround general elections and political manifesto.

Without any doubt if this film was ever released on DVD I would have to buy at least 3 copies.

If there was ever a point in history were spin doctor politics was defined - look no further than this film for it origins.

A monument to Peter Cook and a host of brilliant British comedy actors.

In Bedazzled, Peter Cook played the devil. Here he plays something worse; a man with a clipboard.

As the movie begins, Peter Cook starts following people at an ad agency, writing things down on a clipboard and introducing himself to everyone as Michael Rimmer. He claims to be an employee, yet he has to introduce himself to every single person at the company.

Soon Cook is a pollster, then a politician, each step preceding from the last, each move built on deceit in a world that accepts deceit as the norm, and Cook as one of them.

Cook is a mysterious character. We can see him manipulating events and working his way up the food chain, but there's never a sense of what it's all for. He seemingly just wants power, but it's never enough, and he never uses it for anything except gaining more power. This is interesting, but at the same time its distancing, leaving one intellectually engaged but emotionally disinterested.

The movie is at its best when it lays out the manipulations, as when a politician practices for a speech in an odd way, and then we see the speech and exactly what the rehearsal was all about.

The film is also interesting as a time capsule. It's strange to watch any non-war movie that is so man-heavy. While many movies of the time should men exclusively in business roles, there is usually a counterbalance of women in roles of emotional support. But in a movie all about power made at a time where only men had power, women are pure decorative, used for sex jokes and gratuitous nudity. This is true to what was going on at the time, although in a satire one always notices where the creators seemingly accept the status quo, and here there seems to be no thoughts for the ladies.

The movie didn't do well, but then, how often does satire do well? If you're one of those rare people who are drawn to satire this is a very worthwhile film.

This film was shown recently on Channel 5 in the UK. Basically, a young official looking man with a clipboard, Michael Rimmer (Peter Cook) walks into a dead beat polling company - and begins to change it dramatically. Very soon, the company is a thrusting dynamic organisation - with Michael Rimmer as it's head. He is loved by everyone, and he can manipulate people easily. He then begins to move into politics, and rises very quickly up to Prime Minister. It is then that his true motives begin to appear - he wants to be President of Great Britain. Will he succeed? Of course, he's Michael Rimmer. Watch this film and be amazed. Don't be concerned if you find you rewind it and watch it all over again. It is superb.

A mysterious, charismatic figure (possibly another incarnation of Cook's George Spiggot Devil character from 'Bedazzled') appears from nowhere and takes over a small advertising agency. Through a series of ruthless strategies (media manipulation, political chicanery, blackmail, bribery and murder) he attains huge public notoriety and rises to the heights of government and beyond.

With its amazing cast of contemporaneous British comedy actors and a script by Peter Cook, John Cleese and Graham Chapman, the film should have been a satirical classic. The fact that it isn't, and indeed has virtually disappeared, is mainly due to the very brilliance of its creators. The sketch-show dynamic and satiric insight with which they dominated television comedy and theatre revue does not translates well to the cinema. Here it appears as an unfocused and fragmented ramble.

Rather than create a set of rounded characters which might withstand big-screen scrutiny, Cook and company resort to what they know best - caricatures. Accurate caricatures though they are, these are not 'people' but conduits and Aunt Sallys for the film-maker's understandable exasperation.

Peter Cook never looked so urbane and strikingly handsome as Michael Rimmer: a charming manipulator whose every utterance is a covert announcement of his smoothly diabolical strategy. Cook plays the role like a kind of malevolent mannequin. Grinning and mechanical. It was a deliberate move on his part and quite brave. But the viewer soon craves for him to break cover, show a crack in the veneer, display some vulnerability to connect with. It never happens. Rimmer is no Richard III. Maybe that's the way Cook regarded such power-players: passionless shells of men with nothing but their ambition to drive them. Unfortunately, the film itself takes on these very aspects and becomes heartless and mechanical.

The script is also not quite funny enough. The intimidation of writing for the big screen seems to have severely compromised the talents of the writers. Many of the jokes are forced and frequently fall back on tits-and-arse sight-gags - an unhappy irony as the film is highly critical of the use of sex by advertisers to sell useless products. A severe case of "having your cake and eating it".

A lot of the minor players ham it up to grab laughs in that peculiarly loud, desperate, English rep-company manner. However, it is a truly wonderful thing to behold Peter Cook, Denholm Elliot and the great Harold Pinter (as a fantastically smarmy TV talk-show host) appearing in the same frame trying to out-smarm each other. It's a three way draw. Brilliant.

Yes, there are some good things. Kevin Billington has a nice eye for composition, but, perhaps understandably, he can't do a thing with the fractured narrative. Alex Thompson's camera-work is excellent and imparts a sense of real cinema. The film's insight into the cynical manipulation of the media by politicians seems even more prescient today. But ultimately, it all fails to gel.

Perhaps it came too late in the cycle of British satirical comedy to really get everyone's blood moving. Cleese and Chapman moved on rapidly to the ground-breaking surrealism of Monty Python, and David Frost, the film's co-producer, dived headlong into a lucrative career as a talk-show host and professional jet-setter. But Cook's hopes for becoming a major movie star were destroyed by the film's failure. Apart from sporadic periods of greatness (re-uniting with Dudley Moore etc), he basically drank himself to death over the next twenty-five years. A sad conclusion to a great comedian's life.

The film is worth seeing if for no other reason than to witness a snapshot of British comedy before it flew into a very different orbit.

This cynical tale of politicians and spin-doctors gives me goosebumps because I am amazed how prescient it is fifty years on. Either it accurately predicted the future or politics never changes. If it had been released when it was finished it would have been topical and might have been more of a success, instead it was held back for a year and then vanished without a trace. I ordered a copy when it was first released on dvd, because of the involvement of John Cleese and Graham Chapman; but I was amazed by how much I enjoyed it and I also remembered seeing it on late night TV many years ago, when I was too young to appreciate it.

Peter Cook's unemotional performance in the title role has drawn criticism, even from the man himself but I think it is just right. I have met people in real life who are just as wooden as Michael Rimmer, with nothing behind their eyes. I find the character menacing and I think Cook has a great screen presence, even though this movie apparently ruined his career! The wonderful Vanessa Howard plays Rimmer's wife; I think she should have been a huge star but at least a few of her movies are now available on dvd. Arthur Lowe does a great turn in a supporting role as the lazy and envious Ferret, and many other well known English actors appear, including Denholm Elliott and Dennis Price.

The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer is a comedy but a decidedly black one and all the better for it. There is a shortage of characters to relate to and root for which shows how well it reflects the world of politics but this will have contributed to it being so quickly forgotten when it first came out. At least there have been many favourable reviews since the dvd release.