A Day in the Death of Joe Egg **** (1972, Alan Bates, Janet Suzman, Peter Bowles, Sheila Gish, Joan Hickson, Murray Melvin) – Classic Movie Review 7977

Director Peter Medak’s 1972 A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is a distinguished, heartbreaking film of Peter Nichols’s stage black comedy about a married couple trying to come to terms with their helplessly disabled daughter’s cerebral palsy. She is nearly brain dead.

The film is difficult to take, but it is beautifully written by Nichols, adapting his own play, and Alan Bates and Janet Suzman are nothing short of superb as the distraught couple seeking refuge in dark humour and fantasy. They choose to crack black comedy jokes as they contemplate their lives, their daughter’s welfare and the possibility of carrying out a mercy killing.

There is quality support from Peter Bowles and Sheila Gish as the couple’s friends Freddie and Pam, and Joan Hickson as Suzman’s mother who turns up, as well as Murray Melvin, Constance Chapman, Elizabeth Robillard, Elizabeth Tyrrell and Fanny Carby.

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is a downer, but it is high quality stuff, directed with sharp-eyed sensitivity and beautifully performed. As it is a downer, the amazing thing is that it got made at all.

Medak also directed The Ruling Class in the same year.

Alan Bates was knighted in the 2003 and died on 27 December 2003 in a London hospital from pancreatic cancer, aged 69. Ken Russell said: ‘The airwaves have been heavy with unstinted praise for Alan Bates since his untimely death. All the tributes were more than justified for one of the greatest actors ever to grace the screen and stage.’

Janet Suzman was born on 9 February 1939 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7977

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com