In Peter Medak‘s overlong but delightfully insane The Ruling Class (’72), Peter O’Toole plays two versions of Jack, the 14th Earl of Gurney. During the first 65% he plays Gentle Hippie Jack, a golden-haired mystic given to silly riddles and looney non-sequiturs. All kinds of ridicule and pressure are brought to bear by elite British society, and somehow Jack crumples from within and, just like that, becomes an ultra-conservative, homicidal, knife-wielding fiend — a chilly, well-dressed psychopath who fits in much better with the swells. Nobody wanted to see a film about a Jesus impostor morphing into Jack the Ripper, and so The Ruling Class was a complete financial bust. But O’Toole’s madman scream…my God! Not to mention the “Varsity Drag” number.
