How weird is this movie? The soundtrack is provided by singing weight scales (you know, those public scales into which you place a coin and they "say-your-weight"). This film follows one day's activities of the Groomkirby family. Each member of the family is odder than the other, as each has a foible or two that redefines the meaning of the English eccentrism. The son, Kirby, for example, trains public weight-machines to sing in harmony, and his life functions appear to cease whenever a cash register rings, only to resume when it rings again. For all his time on camera, I don't believe he ever speaks a word. Do not learn too much ahead of time about what goes on in this film, so as to maximize your wonderment at the outré twists and turns.
The highlight of the film is the lengthy trial scene, held in Mr. Groomkirby's living room. You see, he has converted his living room into the Old Bailey, complete with a judge, attorneys, and a bailiff,and he is holding a murder trial for his son... The dialogue throughout the trial is astounding for its hilarious surrealness as well as its ability to sustain, unfalteringly, this manner for a full third of the film. The prosecutor and judge, for example, spend much time trying to dissect and understand the loose ends that Mr. Groomkirby says he found himself at; were the loose ends dangling? And the prosecutor also tries to convict Mr. Groomkirby of being a secret expert at geography; after all, he could not know he was in one city without deliberately avoiding other cities such as Rejkyaveck, which Mr. Groomkirby claims not to be familiar with...
Much has been written about this film's absurdist influence on John Cleese and the other Monty Python members. I will submit that the Pythons, influenced as they may or may not have been by this film, understood one thing that made them funnier: to make a character who is truly bizarre as funny as possible, you need to give him a "normal" person to play off of. In "One Way Pendulum", everyone is weird (with the exception of the daughter's suitor, who's role is secondary).
Classic British wit and sophisticated writing abound in this movie, and I highly recommend it. The trial scene in itself belongs in the British Film Comedy Hall of Fame.
The highlight of the film is the lengthy trial scene, held in Mr. Groomkirby's living room. You see, he has converted his living room into the Old Bailey, complete with a judge, attorneys, and a bailiff,and he is holding a murder trial for his son... The dialogue throughout the trial is astounding for its hilarious surrealness as well as its ability to sustain, unfalteringly, this manner for a full third of the film. The prosecutor and judge, for example, spend much time trying to dissect and understand the loose ends that Mr. Groomkirby says he found himself at; were the loose ends dangling? And the prosecutor also tries to convict Mr. Groomkirby of being a secret expert at geography; after all, he could not know he was in one city without deliberately avoiding other cities such as Rejkyaveck, which Mr. Groomkirby claims not to be familiar with...
Much has been written about this film's absurdist influence on John Cleese and the other Monty Python members. I will submit that the Pythons, influenced as they may or may not have been by this film, understood one thing that made them funnier: to make a character who is truly bizarre as funny as possible, you need to give him a "normal" person to play off of. In "One Way Pendulum", everyone is weird (with the exception of the daughter's suitor, who's role is secondary).
Classic British wit and sophisticated writing abound in this movie, and I highly recommend it. The trial scene in itself belongs in the British Film Comedy Hall of Fame.