MORGAN: A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT

Morgan, the son of a deceased railroad man and a Stalinist cook, was the hope of the London "cells". He married Leonie, a rich bourgeois woman. Now she is asking him for a divorce so that she can marry Napier the director of a gallery of modern art. Morgan is a painter of animal subjects and often casts himself away into monkeylike dreams. He can't do without his playmate Leonie and so sets out to reconquer her. Leonie defends herself with amused indulgence from the erotic attacks of her exhusband. At the dawn of a night spent out on the town in London with her fiancé, she finally gives in to Morgan and laments her action as soon as she wakes up late that day. Morgan does not desist. With the help of a wrestler her mother's boyfriend he kidnaps her, taking her to a lake region in Wales where he hopes to recreate a romantic situation like that of Tarzan and Jane. He is found by Napier and his exinlaws. He is thrown into prison and freed the night before Leonie's wedding. He commits a desperate action dressed in a gorilla suit, thinking of himself as a new King Kong. It turns out badly and he finishes in an insane asylum where he builds flower beds in the form of a hammer and sickle. But all is not lost. Leonie is pregnant, and it is his baby.

"It was a special period for England. Everything seemed possible. Certain structures were crumbling, giving way to more freedom. It was the time of the Beatles, the time that was going to be called swinging Britain. Then it seemed normal to use speeded up shots if you wanted to, or to make washed out images. or to pass from any depth of field to any other in the editing. When this happened, we did not feel like we broke the rules of a 'grammar', of whatever kind. Indeed, I think that Morgan belongs decisively to that epoch. Look, the time in your life when you are most happy is when your work goes on in a favorable atmosphere, when you aren't the exception, when others are working in the same spirit, and when you are absolutely sure that the spirit in which you are working will permit you to get to an audience." (Karel Reisz interviewed by Jean Grissolange, "Jeune Cinéma", n. 122, October 1979)

Director: Karel Reisz.
Screenplay: David Mercer, da un proprio lavoro televisivo.
Director of photography: Larry Pizer, Gerry Turpin.
Editor: Victor Proctor, Tom Priestley.
Art director: Philip Harrison.
Costume designer: Jocelyn Rickards.
Music: John Dankworth
Cast: Vanessa Redgrave (Leonie), David Warner (Morgan), Robert Stephens (Charles Napier), Irene HandI (Mrs. Delt, la mamma di Morgan), Arthur Mullard (Wally), Newton Blick (Mr. Henderson, il padre di Leonie), Nan Munro (la madre di Leonie), Bernard Bresslaw (un poliziotto), Graham Crowden (un uomo di legge), Peter Cellier, John Rae, Angus Mac Kay, Peter Collingwood, John Garrie, Robert Bridges, Marvis Edwards.
Production company: Leon Clore (per la Quintra Productions, British Lion Films).