I’d be surprised if film-loving Millennials and Zoomers had the slightest awareness of Peter Medak‘s The Ruling Class (’72). It’s too British, too mid-20th-Century and too propelled by class hatred (iconoclast British lefties despising old-school Whitehall elites) to connect with 21st Century viewers, but very few films fiddled with murder, sex, notions of universal love, vaudevillian music-hall humor and demonic horror like this one did. It may be the only film that successfully mixed these elements.
Peter O’Toole wore a straw-blonde Jesus wig during the first 65%, but his slightly reddish, honey-colored hair during the final 35% is a real trip….gleaming, eye-filling.
