This is a perversely hilarious comedy about one restless night (among many) in the fading life of ageing, over-sexed novelist, Clive Langham. Clive lives alone in a country mansion and spends his nights cursing his fate as he inserts suppositories, sits on the ‘throne’ and downs bottle after bottle of white wine. In his nightmare, the characters of his novel mix with his real life relatives. As Clive gathers his relatives around him for a final week-end and they attempt to nurse him back to life, he realises that they are not the monsters he perceived them to be.
Credits: Produces, Yves Gasser, Yves Renot, Klaus Hellwig ; director, Alain Resnais ; writers, David Mercer ; photography, Ricardo Aronovitch ; music, Miklos Rozsa ; art direction, Jacques Saulnier.
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Ellen Burstyn, John Gielgud, David Warner, Elain Stritch, Peter Arne.
Content notification
Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.
Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.
How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
X000022
Language
English
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Colour
Holdings
16mm film; Limited Access Print (Section 2)