Otley *** (1969, Tom Courtenay, Romy Schneider, Alan Badel, James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter, Freddie Jones, James Bolam, James Maxwell, James Cossins) – Classic Movie Review 8856

Director Dick Clement’s 1968 spy comedy Otley is an amiable and fairly funny, if a bit clumsy and broad, Ealing Studios-style Sixties spoof thriller, eager to please in sending up James Bondage and swinging London.

Tom Courtenay stars as the antiques dealer Gerald Arthur Otley, who is mixed up with spies and murderers, after sleeping at a friend’s house following a drunken night on the town and waking up on an airport field two days later.

The normally intense actor Courtenay shows good comic flair here, and unexpectedly cast co-star Romy Schneider makes an appealing foil, while the screenplay is brightly written by Ian La Frenais and Clement (who also directs), based on the novel by Martin Waddell.

The pop group The Herd and DJs Jimmy Young and Pete Murray appear as themselves.

Also in the splendid cast are Alan Badel, James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter, Freddie Jones, James Bolam, James Maxwell, James Cossins, Fiona Lewis, Ronald Lacey, Geoffrey Bayldon, Phyllida Law, Edward Hardwicke, Frank Middlemass, Barry Fantoni, David Kernan, Sheila Steafel, Jonathan Cecil, Sheila Tanner, Robin Askwith and Kenneth Cranham.

Slightly patchy and occasionally sluggish between the laughs, it is not a great movie, but it does bring back the flavour of its late-Sixties era brilliantly with its actors, story, soundtrack and location filming.

Otley is directed by Dick Clement, runs 92 minutes, is written by Bruce Cohn Curtis Films and Open Road Films, is released by Columbia, written by Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement, based on the novel by Martin Waddell, shot in Technicolor by Austin Dempster, produced by Bruce Cohn Curtis and scored by Stanley Myers.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8856

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