Waste of time

good back-story, and good acting

Crappy film

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Two of the former film-editor David Lean's contemporaries and collaborators in the pre-war British film industry --the cameraman Ronny Neame and the art director John Bryan—had also risen in the ranks by the time this film was made. This delightful film based on Joyce Cary's novel "The Horse's Mouth" with Neame as director and Bryan as the producer is blessed by an excellent script by the film's leading actor, Alec Guinness. To the cinema-going public who had come to know Guinness primarily as a leading member of Lean's stock company of British stage actors, and perhaps best as the taciturn quintessentially little English man he had played so often in the Ealing Studio comedies, it must have come as quite a surprise to see him cast against type as the incorrigible sponger, con-man and self-acknowledged artistic genius Gulley Jimpson. In many ways Guinness with his mild-mannered boyish persona would have seemed oddly miscast as the loud-mouth womanizing Jimpson, but Guinness manages to pull this off; perhaps because he is so wonderfully supported by two brilliant actresses –Kay Walsh as the steely barmaid,and Renee Houston as his still adoring ex-wife— both of them treat him more as a naughty boy gone wrong than as a sex-object. Therein lies the unique charm and originality of this film, one of the most believable every made about the life of a struggling and self-destructive artist.It's truly the Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Little Boy. Bad as Gulley is, and is he! he is never in the least unlikeable. Quite an accomplishment for Guinness. Another wonderful choice Neame and Bryan made was to use the outrageous expressionist paintings of an actual artist, John Bratby (1928-1992). They are either very terrible or very wonderful in the eyes of the beholder, but whatever the viewer's choice, for once in film these paintings are completely believable as the real work of a bohemian painter trying to break all the rules of the academy and perhaps succeeding. Finally, Neame and Bryan are to be congratulated on adapting the score Prokofiev wrote for an obscure Soviet film.

I first saw this movie as part of a late-night Alec Guiness film festival when I was a teen. I was totally blown away by it. Among other things it inspired in me a love of Prokofiev and it also impelled me to seek out the book on which THE HORSE'S MOUTH was based. Sad to say once I got into Joyce Cary's novel my opinion of the movie went down several notches. The movie is very good but the book is brilliant. In fact it's only Guiness' deviations from the original novel that hurt his screenplay. There are depths to Cary's work that are rarely approached here and the addition of broad slapstick humor and the slightly cop-out ending are not improvements.Having said that, a book is a book and a movie is a movie and this movie is still very good. In addition to the excellent score we're given a fine cast. Guiness himself is so good that I can't read the book without picturing him as Gulley Jimson, and horror film fans will enjoy seeing Michael (HORROR OF Dracula, etc.) Gough as a rival artist and Ernest (BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN)Thesiger as Jimson's one-time patron driven past his limit by the eccentric artist.Enjoy the movie (but check out the source).

A year after winning the Oscar for Best Actor in The Bridge on the River Kwai, Alec Guinness was back to doing comedy, but with a lot bigger budgets than he was used to. His classic parts in Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Lavendar Hill Mob were done without color for instance, which was a much bigger premium for films in the United Kingdom.Guinness has not played such a disreputable character as Cully Jimson since playing Fagin in Oliver Twist. Yet even as he's fleecing all around him including his girl friend Kay Walsh and devoted acolyte Mike Morgan, he still retains that likability. You do end up rooting for him even as he pulls some outrageous scams.Kay Walsh who as David Lean's ex-wife was friends with Guinness and his wife Merula. Lean of course was responsible for Guinness's breakout roles in Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. Guinness got her cast in the role of his long suffering girlfriend and owner of a pub.Sadly young Mike Morgan died right before shooting ended on The Horse's Mouth. Guinness had worked with him previously on Morgan's only other film credit, Barnacle Bill. He gives a nice winsome performance as the young man who just wants to bask in the glow of Guinness's talent and glosses over all the chicanery.I don't think The Horse's Mouth is as good as Kind Hearts and Coronets or The Lavendar Hill Mob. Still Guinness obviously saw the film as a labor of love and the results do show.

The script by Sir Alec Guinness made this a most enjoyable funny well acted film.Kay Walsh is superb as Coker. I always found that Miss.Walsh was an excellent supportive actress and when with Sir Alec they made a special sparkle light up.The book was "flat" and yet Sir Alec persuaded his friend,the director of the film,that it could be made and had potential. How right he was. Ronald Neame said that he could not see a "film" coming out from the book,but once the script had been written by Sir Alec,he was enthusiastic.The scene with Miss.Walsh running away from the police is hilariously funny.I cannot recommend it too highly. One of my personal favourite Guinness film.R. Guinness