Otley *** (1969, Tom Courtenay, Romy Schneider, Alan Badel, James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter, Freddie Jones, James Bolam, James Maxwell, James Cossins) – Classic Movie Review 8,856

Tom Courtenay stars as an antiques dealer mixed up with spies and murderers, in the amiable and amusing 1968 British spy comedy thriller Otley.

Director Dick Clement’s 1968 British spy comedy film Otley is an amiable and fairly funny, if a bit clumsy and broad, Ealing Studios-style Sixties spoof thriller, eager to please in sending up James Bondage and swinging London.

Tom Courtenay stars as the young antiques dealer Gerald ‘Gerry’ Arthur Otley, who is mixed up with spies and murderers, after sleeping at a friend’s house following a drunken night on the town and waking up on an airport field two days later.

The normally intense actor Courtenay shows good comic flair here, and unexpectedly cast co-star Romy Schneider makes an appealing foil as Imogen, while the screenplay is brightly written by Ian La Frenais and Clement (who also makes his directorial debut), based on the 1966 novel by Martin Waddell.

The pop group The Herd and DJs Jimmy Young and Pete Murray appear as themselves. Don Partridge co-writes and performs the title song ‘Homeless Bones’, the B-side of his 1969 single “Colour My World’.

Also in the splendid cast are Alan Badel, James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter, Freddie Jones, James Bolam, James Maxwell, James Cossins, Fiona Lewis, Ronald Lacey, Geoffrey Bayldon, Phyllida Law, Edward Hardwicke, Frank Middlemass, Barry Fantoni, David Kernan, Sheila Steafel, Jonathan Cecil, Sheila Tanner, Don McKillop, Robin Askwith, and Kenneth Cranham.

Slightly patchy and occasionally sluggish between the laughs, it is not a great movie, but it does bring back the flavour of its late-Sixties era brilliantly with its actors, story, soundtrack and location filming.

It is shot on location in London and at Shepperton Studios. The locations include Notting Hill; the Cheyne Walk houseboats in Chelsea; Bowater House in Knightsbridge; the Playboy Club in Park Lane; and the Unilever milk depot in Wood Lane.

Release dates: 22 May 1969 (UK) and 11 March 1969 (New York).

Otley is directed by Dick Clement, runs 92 minutes, is made by Bruce Cohn Curtis Films and Open Road Films, is released by Columbia Pictures, is written by Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement, based on the novel by Martin Waddell, is shot in Technicolor by Austin Dempster, is produced by Bruce Cohn Curtis, and is scored by Stanley Myers.

Tom Courtenay and Leonard Rossiter both previously appeared in Billy Liar (1963).

Pete Murray (born 19 September 1925)

Edward Hardwicke (7 August 1932 – 16 May 2011)

Freddie Jones (12 September 1927 – 9 July 2019)

David Kernan (23 June 1938 – 26 December 2023)

Barry Fantoni (28 February 1940 – 20 May 2025) 

© Dis erek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8.856

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