The Ruling Class

The Ruling Class is a 1972 British black comedy film. It is an adaptation of Peter Barnes' satirical stage play which tells the story of a paranoid schizophrenic British nobleman (played by Peter O'Toole) who inherits a peerage. The film co-stars Alastair Sim, William Mervyn, Coral Browne, Harry Andrews, Carolyn Seymour, James Villiers and Arthur Lowe. It was produced by Jules Buck and directed by Peter Medak. The film is a "commercial failure [...that] has since become a cult classic"; Peter O'Toole described it as "a comedy with tragic relief".

After the death from accidental asphyxiation of Ralph Gurney, the 13th Earl of Gurney (Andrews), Jack Gurney (O'Toole) becomes the 14th Earl of Gurney. Jack Gurney at first thinks he is God and shocks his family and friends with his talk of returning to the world to bring it love and charity, not to mention his penchant for breaking out into song and dance routines and sleeping upright on a cross. When faced with unpalatable facts (such as his identity as the 14th Earl), Jack puts them in his "galvanized pressure cooker" and they disappear. His unscrupulous uncle, Sir Charles (Mervyn), marries him to his mistress, Grace (Seymour), in hopes of producing an heir and putting his nephew in an institution; the plan fails when Grace falls in love with Jack. Jack gains another ally in Sir Charles' wife, Lady Claire (Browne), who hates her husband and befriends Jack just to spite him. She also begins sleeping with Jack's psychiatrist, Dr. Herder (Michael Bryant), to persuade him to cure Jack quickly.

Herder attempts to cure him through intensive psychotherapy, to no avail; Jack so thoroughly believes that he is the "God of Love" that he dismisses any suggestion to the contrary as the rambling of lunatics. The night his wife goes into labour, Herder makes a last effort at therapy; he introduces Jack to McKyle (Nigel Green), a patient who also believes himself to be Christ or as the patient puts it, "The Electric Messiah" who subjects an unwitting Jack to electroshock therapy. The plan is to use the electroshock to jolt Jack out of his delusions, showing him that the two men could not both be God and so he must be operating under hallucinations. The plan works, and as Grace delivers a healthy baby boy, Jack appears to return to his senses and proclaims "I'm Jack, I'm Jack". In truth, he now believes himself to be Jack the Ripper.

Sir Charles sends for a court appointed psychiatrist (Graham Crowden) to evaluate Jack, confident that his nephew will be sent to an asylum for life. He is once again thwarted when the psychiatrist discovers that Jack was a fellow Old Etonian, bonds with him and declares him sane.

Jack Gurney is now a violent psychopath with a fanatical hatred of women and an ability to pretend to be sane as needed. Jack murders Lady Claire in a fit of enraged revulsion when the aging woman tries to seduce him. He frames the Communist family butler, Tucker (Lowe), for the murder and assumes his place in the House of Lords with a fiery speech in favor of capital and corporal punishment. The speech is wildly applauded and the lords have no idea that it is the ranting of a madman, in contrast to society's reaction when Jack believed he was Christ. That night, he murders Grace for expressing her love for him.

The story's ending is ambiguous; Jack's fate is left open to interpretation.

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