Taglines: Life just went over the edge.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen movie storyline. Antonia Dyer is young and rich – an aristocratic beauty. But in private she is also a drug addict. Motorcycle messenger Mike Stone becomes involved with her when he delivers a package from Tony Vernon-Smith an aristocratic thug who can ‘supply’ anything – at a price. Of course money is the one thing Antonia isn’t short of. Stringer is a ruthless Drug Squad officer who becomes unhinged when he discovers that his daughter Sandy is also involved with Vernon-Smith’s Chelsea drugs scene. A complex story unfolds.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen is a 1995 British thriller film directed by Henry Cole and starring Elizabeth Hurley, C. Thomas Howell, Joss Ackland, Claire Bloom, Frederick Treves, Andrew Connolly, Christopher Adamson, Louise Delamere and Paula Hamilton The screenplay concerns an upper-class drug addict pursued by the criminal underworld.
Film Review for Mad Dogs and Englishmen
“Mad Dogs and Englishmen” is the filmed record of the American tour undertaken last year by Joe Cocker, the young extraordinarily talented, British blues singer, and the largely American entourage (band, choir, friends, wives, children, groupies and a single dog named Canina) that accompanied him. The entire group numbered almost 40 people, most of whom were on stage during most of the performances, making for what seems to have been extremely cheerful and friendly chaos.
That, at least, is the spirit of this most satisfying, record-album of a movie, for which the group’s off-stage experiences—traveling by bus and plane, radio interviews, picnics, getting up in the morning—act as liner notes. Liner notes are seldom absolutely necessary, but they can be entertaining when one has nothing else to read.
Those for “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” (the movie, not the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer soundtrack album) don’t say very much about the driving genius of Mr. Cocker, which remains his own, quite private concern until his stage appearances, but they serve as necessary and often entertaining intermissions between the fine, galvanizing Cocker performances.
“Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” the name Mr. Cocker gave to the group put together for this tour, is exactly what a cinema vérité concert film should be: music as recorded during lively performances, in this case in Dallas, San Francisco, Piattsburgh, N. Y.; Minneapolis and, finally, New York, at the Fillmore East.
Mr. Cocker is not the spectacularly sinuous, sexually aggressive performer that Mick Jagger is. In his old undershirt, which is occasionally dressed up with a few sequins, he is hardly a sight that is immediately riveting. His equally talented No. 2 man, Leon Russell, arranger-guitarist-pianist-composer-what have you, with his long hair, 19th-century topper and white jeans with the flowers on the seat, is much more photogenic. It is, however, Mr. Cocker who provides the show, who sings most of the film’s 15 numbers, with, from time to time, a little bit of help from such friends as Claudia Linnear and Mr. Russell.
Mr. Cocker’s style is post-Ray Charles, post-almost anybody I can think of, a gravelly voice that seems to have been pushed beyond its endurance, but that always retains reserve with which to maneuver through Mr. Russell’s complex arrangements. Their rock-blues utilizing the large choir into which the children and Canina sometimes wander, are immensely elaborate without ever being fancy, principally, I suspect, because Mr. Cocker is not a fancy artist.
He is simple, direct and great, as is the repertory that includes a lot of rock standards like “Honky Tonk Woman,” “Space Captain,” “Let It Be” and “Give Peace a Chance.” Thus, people coming upon Mr. Cocker for the first time will not be lost.
As in most films of this nature, it’s difficult to tell who is responsible for what, but let me say that it was directed by Pierre Adidge, co-directed and edited by Sid Levin, with David Myers as director of photography, which includes the work of at least three cameras. The quality of the blow-up print from 16 millimeter to 35 millimeter that I saw at the Trans-Lux West (where it opened yesterday, as well as at the Trans-Lux East) was not perfect, but certainly adequate. The split-screen effects are sometimes lovely, and the sound recording seemed excellent.
“Mad Dogs and Englishmen” patronizes neither its audience nor its stars. Occasionally it lets peripheral characters make rather sober fools of themselves, such as the professorial disk jockey who tells Mr. Cocker how he could spend “two hours in the British Museum, just looking at all that stuff they ripped off the Egyptians.” The film, however, is too good-natured, and too involved with the actual performance of a single star, to waste much time with this sort of thing, which is why it is so satisfactory, so pleasing. It is uncluttered, one of the best concert films so far.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1995)
Directed by: Henry Cole
Starring: Elizabeth Hurley, C. Thomas Howell, Joss Ackland, Claire Bloom, Frederick Treves, Andrew Connolly, Christopher Adamson, Louise Delamere, Paula Hamilton
Screenplay by: Tim Sewell
Production Design by: Tony Stringer
Cinematography by: John Peters
Film Editing by: Simon Hilton, Sidney Levin, Lionel Selwyn
Costume Design by: Lisa Johnson
Art Direction by: Sonja Klaus
Music by: Barrie Guard
MPAA Rating: R for strong drug use and for violence, sexuality, and language.
Distributed by: Entertainment Film Distributors
Release Date: June 2, 1995
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