A Jolly Bad Fellow (1964)

Director: Don Chaffey

Writer: Robert Hamer

Stars: Leo McKern, Janet Munro and Maxine Audley

Genres: Comedy

Goofy British black comedy stars McKern as a nutty-but-evil professor who discovers a poison that drives victims into hysterics and then kills them without a trace.

Originally intending to use the poison for the good of mankind, McKern snaps when university politics threaten his experiments, and he begins to bump off his enemies with the poison.

Eventually McKern's well-endowed girl friend and lab assistant, Munro, begins to suspect that she's next on his list and threatens to expose him unless he divorces his wife and marries her.

McKern laughs at her attempt to have him arrested because the poison leaves no trace, and he defiantly lights up a cigarette to wait for the cops to come.

He too realizes too late that he's just smoked a poisoned cigarette.

A poised and sophisticated comedy written by one of the most stylish screenwriters and directors in the Ealing stable, Robert Hamer, just before he died, and directed by Don Chaffey, noted for his saucy comedies and adults-only pictures.

IMDb

IMDb Plot Keywords: Independent Film

A Curious Hybrid

"A Jolly unhealthy Fellow" follows the exploits of a cynical middle-aged don (Leo McKern) at an Oxbridge-like university. A scientist, with a cold-bloodedly rationalist outlook, he's at odds together with his different dons, a set of fusty classicists who read him as an outsider. An accidental discovery by his dim-witted lab assistant (Dinsdale Landen) provides him with the means that to neutralise people who stand within the manner of the educational preferment he seeks. His long-suffering however loving wife (Maxine Audley) tries to overlook his philanderings, not least his liaison with a fairly young feminine analysis assistant (Janet Munro).

The film may be a curious hybrid. created at the terribly begin of the swinging 60s, it's nevertheless paying homage to the sooner Ealing films, of that it's a late example, not least "Kind Hearts and Coronets". There are, however, fleeting modern references (to Cliff Richard - many months later it might are The Beatles), and Janet Munro, in an adulterous seaside assignation, appearance each in. the proto-dolly bird as she strolls along the sea-front, arm-in-arm together with her ageing lover.

With a distinguished supporting solid that features Dennis value (as an particularly pompous fellow academic), "A Jolly unhealthy Fellow" is promptly an amusing and disturbing black comedy. Fans of John Barry can get pleasure from the very good soundtrack, that includes Alan Haven on organ, that stylistically prefigures that of "The Knack".