I'll Never Forget What's'isname

I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname, also known as The Takers, is a 1967 British comedy-drama film directed and produced by Michael Winner. It stars Oliver Reed and Orson Welles. It was written by Peter Draper. The film deals with creativity and commercialism.

I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Michael Winner
Written by	Peter Draper
Produced by	Michael Winner
Starring	Orson Welles Oliver Reed Carol White Harry Andrews Michael Hordern Lyn Ashley Frank Finlay
Cinematography	Otto Heller
Edited by	Bernard Gribble
Music by	Francis Lai
Production companies	Universal Pictures Scimitar Films
Distributed by	Rank Film Distributors
Release dates	18 December 1967 (1967-12-18) (London) April 18, 1968 (1968-04-18) (NYC)
Running time	99 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Plot

The opening credits run as a man carries a large axe through the streets of London. He then enters an office and destroys a desk with the axe. The man, Quint works for Dallafield Advertising alongside Lute. Quint has a string of affairs with younger women despite being married. He begins to recall his torturous school days, and these memories entwine with the present.

Quint attempts to get back at his boss Jonathan Lute by making a negative commercial reusing themes from earlier in the film, including Lute saying "The number one product of all human endeavor is waste... waste." The commercial, advertising a Super-8 camera, talks about capturing events while you still can before everything is destroyed and discarded. It ends with Quint operating a car crusher and destroying numerous cameras. The commercial is hailed as a masterpiece, and wins an award, but Quint hurls the award into the River Thames, and escapes into Swinging London.

Cast

• Orson Welles as Jonathan Lute
• Oliver Reed as Andrew Quint
• Carol White as Georgina Elben
• Harry Andrews as Gerald Sater, Quint's old teacher
• Michael Hordern as headmaster
• Wendy Craig as Louise Quint
• Norman Rodway as Nicholas
• Marianne Faithfull as Josie
• Frank Finlay as school chaplain
• Ann Lynn as Carla
• Harvey Hall as Charles Maccabee
• Lyn Ashley as Susannah
• Edward Fox as Walter
• Mark Burns as Michael Cornwall
• Mark Eden as Kelloway
• Stuart Cooper as Lewis Force
• Roland Curram as Eldrich
• Peter Graves as Bankman
• Bessie Love as American tourist (uncredited)
• Anthony Sharp as Mr. Hamper Down (uncredited)
• Julian Holloway as young man in disco (uncredited)
• Nicky Henson as young man in disco (uncredited)

Soundtrack

The soundtrack by Francis Lai was released on LP by Decca Records (Decca DL 79163).

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This tragi-comedy is bursting with brightness and ideas, which are on the whole too confused to add up to very much. In its particular brand of cynicism one senses, perhaps mistakenly, the influence of Schlesinger – the same cold eye for human frailty, and the same identification of old school tie sentiments with the worst in human hypocrisy and degradation. ... Intermittently the film both pleases and amuses, particularly when Orson Welles, as the advertising tycoon, makes one of his brief appearances with a remark like "What's the going price on integrity this week?". Oliver Reed makes a credible bounder of Quint, and Wendy Craig gives a moving performance as his neglected wife. Carol White is vivacious as the tragic Georgina, and Otto Heller's Technicolor photography gives the subject a distinction that probably goes beyond its deserts."

Richard Schickel wrote in Life magazine: "The people responsible for this movie have taken a big chance, deliberately blowing their cool in the hope that they can overpower ours. For me the gamble worked."

The Kentucky Kernel wrote: "The movie, as a whole, came off as a pessimistic reiteration of the existing war between traditions and society, and individuality and the arts. It sparked here and there and was just about to catch fire when something woul inevitably happen to drag it back into the groove it had started for itself."

Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide described the film as an "Excellent comedy drama".

VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever 2007 wrote: "To some tastes, this overwrought and long-unseen comedy from the swinging '60s will be completely dated with characters whose mindsets are totally alien."

Leslie Halliwell said: "Vivid yet muddled tragi-comedy of the sixties, with splashes of sex and violence in trendy settings, a hero one really doesn't believe in, and a title which seems to have no meaning whatsoever."

Controversy

In the United States, the film was denied a MPAA seal of approval due to a scene between Oliver Reed and Carol White which supposedly implied cunnilingus. Winner, in his audio commentary, said he considered the scene to show masturbation. The Catholic League inaccurately described it as "fellatio". Universal distributed the film through Regional Film Distributors, a subsidiary that was not a member of the MPAA. Along with a similar scene in Charlie Bubbles (1967), this helped to bring about the end of the Production Code in the U.S. and its replacement with a ratings system.

The film has been incorrectly named as the first mainstream film to propose the use in the dialogue of "fuck". In fact, the BBFC certified the film after demanding the removal, or at least obscuring, of the word fucking (via the sound of a car horn) in June 1967, three months later than Ulysses (1967), which suffered heavier cuts. The error seems to have arisen because of a longstanding lack of easily obtainable film release date information.

External links

• I'll Never Forget What's'isname at IMDb
• I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname at AllMovie