Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment ***** (1966, David Warner, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Stephens) – Classic Movie Review 2911

Director Karel Reisz’s modishly trendy razzle-dazzle 1966 comedy Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment is another pillar of the Swinging Sixties British New Wave cinema. It’s a lovely, funny, appealing film with irrepressible zest and brio, and a great advert for being an outsider.

Vanessa Redgrave stars as Leonie Delt, an unhappily married woman who decides to swap her zany husband Morgan (David Warner), a London artist who’s crazy about Marx and monkeys, for a starchy, no-nonsense businessman (Robert Stephens). After his wife leaves him, Morgan descends into madness in his attempts to win her back.

Director Reisz uses a TV play by David Mercer (writing his own screenplay) as a suitable case for a hilarious and touching treatment that, despite its pretentions, isn’t meant to be taken seriously. Warner turns his infuriating character into an exhilaratingly attractive anti-hero, while the others make silk purses out of underwritten stereotypes, and Irene Handl (Morgan’s Commie mum Mrs Delt), Arthur Mullard (Wally) and Bernard Bresslaw (policeman) bring a lot of cheery Cockney warmth.

Larry Pizer and Gerry Turpin’s cinematography and Johnny Dankworth’s score are essential ingredients in the success.

Also in the cast are Newton Blick, Nan Munro, Peter Collingwood, Peter Cellier and Graham Crowden.

Irene Handl may have been typecast as a cheery Cockney, but she was born in Maida Vale, London, the youngest of two daughters of an Austrian banker and stockbroker, Friedrich Handl, and his German wife, Maria née Schiepp.

David Warner (29 July 1941 – 24 July 2022) made his film debut as the villain Blifil in Tom Jones in 1963, and became a star in 1966 with his lead performance in Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, for which he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2911

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