Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

tieman64 Peter Medak's "The Ruling Class" stars Peter O'Toole as Jack Gurney, a nobleman who inherits a relative's wealth and estate. As Gurney's family are emblematic of Britain's ruling class – aristocratic, powerful, duplicitous and uncaring – Gurney undergoes a mental breakdown. Refusing to be complicit with the "reality" of the social class he was born into, a "reality" that he deems inhumane, Gurney starts believing himself to be Jesus Christ.As the adage goes, 'the ruling ideas of every epoch are the ideas of the ruling class'. Refusing to abide by this anymore, Gurney begins to embody values, principles and beliefs that are antithetical to those of his family (love, peace, equality etc). They find his "virtues" disgusting, he finds their world intolerable. The film climaxes with Gurney's family members restoring "sanity" to Gurney, at which point he believes himself to be Jack the Ripper. As a murderous madman, Gurney is embraced by the British establishment. Like most political, British, post-war theatre, the film thus aligns conservative, post-war capitalism to a goofy ruling class who specialise in crushing souls. Final act? Gurney murderously cutting ties with loved ones whilst communists (a butler who reads Marx, Lenin and Mao) are scapegoated by the rich. Final scene? Gurney applauded by his peers and standing at the heart of a British parliament populated with zombies. The symbolism speaks for itself.Like "Heaven's Above!" (1963), a similar British film, "The Ruling Class" finds two ideologies vying for control. On one hand we have what might be called "Christian" or "liberal" values, and on the other, more traditional, conservative values. In the film, these strands are incompatible. In the real world, beneath our civilised Jesus tends to lie The Ripper, and vice versa. More importantly, the latter can't get away with its crimes unless it perceives itself as anointed, sanctified and righteous.Based on a play by Peter Barnes, "The Ruling Class" is an overlong and at times dull film. There are nevertheless many interesting passages peppered about, some very good surreal moments, some wonderfully blunt/gross satire (evocative of Bunuel) and another good performance by O'Toole, whose role seems to critique the kings and rulers he played earlier in his career ("Becket", "The Lion in Winter"). It's a shame that Medak's film isn't more focused, because he has very interesting material to work with.7.5/10 – Worth one viewing. See "They Might Be Giants" and "A Thousand Clowns".

Andrew Huggett 'rich knobs and privileged a***holes can afford to be bonkers … 'The first 10 minutes or so of this film are quite interesting, with a good cast of British eccentrics (especially the splendid Alastair Sim and Arthur Lowe). I quite enjoyed the gathering at the start with the reading of the will and the arrival of the new Lord (and even the subsequent surreal song and dance routine with the ladies organising the local fête) – but it then descends into a complete pretentious mess. Very disappointing considering the talented actors deployed here. I nodded off just after Peter O'Toole had stopped thinking he was God and decided he was Jack the Ripper instead - this was partly because I'd had some wine with my meal, and not entirely down to the reactions this film provoked in me. The odd sequence at the end in the House of Lords reminded me of the final 2 episodes of the TV series 'the Prisoner' made 4 years prior to the release of this film.

moonspinner55 Gross, frequently tasteless satire, much as if Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" were transplanted to England's House of Lords and then played at the wrong speed. After the Earl of Gurney accidentally kills himself during one of his fetish games, the 14th Earl--son Jack--is groomed to accept the crown. Once mad Jack--who believes himself to be Christ--undergoes a mental transformation on the night of his son's birth and self-metamorphoses into Jack the Ripper, the plot (thin to begin with) becomes a dartboard for the one-liners (some of which are very funny and are a compensation). Peter Barnes adapted his play for the screen, the kind of material upper-crust audiences like to label 'savage'; he was reciprocated with a game cast and a fine director in Peter Medak, yet these nutty fantasies are merely clotheslines for Barnes to hang his maddening soliloquies on. Peter O'Toole (with cartoony strawberry-blond hair) has some terrific moments early on, particularly in the musical send-ups, but later begins to bellow and rarely stops. The film is too full of targets, and too nasty overall, for its extreme length...it doesn't even look good. ** from ****

thefensk They almost never show this on TV. Sad. It is a remarkable film and Peter O'Toole is simply brilliant as Jack.The fight scene between the two "gods" is wonderful. Almost makes me wish they made a sequel about the life of the electromagnetic god who has to recharge via an open light socket. Great fun and then downright chilling at the end. The butler is one of the better characters, as is old Alastair Sim as the Bishop. "Why was he wearing a ballet skirt?" Poor old dear. As good as Brando was in The Godfather, I still think O'Toole should have trumped him for Best Actor that year. I mean, Brando played a great character, but O'Toole ACTED in this, acted up, down, right, left, and sideways. He is not the same character at the end ... oh, no.