Neil Doyle A nice chance to see ALEC GUINNESS as a mad abstract artist with KAY WALSH as his bitterly complaining friend in THE HORSE'S MOUTH. Guinness also wrote the script which has him as a mad artist--crusty, eccentric, but sometimes lovable--who has a knack for getting into trouble whenever he decides to splash his paints on any bare wall. I must say the resulting paintings are not to my taste, so I squirmed uncomfortably at the sight of them.But the film is really a character study of the eccentric man and his close friendship with some equally weird friends. Ronald Neame uses the Technicolor camera to capture some nice scenes of London, but the story is essentially a two-character study that works because of the excellent performances of Guinness and Walsh.Summing up: Uneven results but generally amusing and entertaining with some very funny moments.

ilprofessore-1 Two of the former film-editor David Lean's contemporaries and collaborators in the pre-war British film industry --the cameraman Ronny Neame and the art director John Bryan—had also risen in the ranks by the time this film was made. This delightful film based on Joyce Cary's novel "The Horse's Mouth" with Neame as director and Bryan as the producer is blessed by an excellent script by the film's leading actor, Alec Guinness. To the cinema-going public who had come to know Guinness primarily as a leading member of Lean's stock company of British stage actors, and perhaps best as the taciturn quintessentially little English man he had played so often in the Ealing Studio comedies, it must have come as quite a surprise to see him cast against type as the incorrigible sponger, con-man and self-acknowledged artistic genius Gulley Jimpson. In many ways Guinness with his mild-mannered boyish persona would have seemed oddly miscast as the loud-mouth womanizing Jimpson, but Guinness manages to pull this off; perhaps because he is so wonderfully supported by two brilliant actresses –Kay Walsh as the steely barmaid,and Renee Houston as his still adoring ex-wife— both of them treat him more as a naughty boy gone wrong than as a sex-object. Therein lies the unique charm and originality of this film, one of the most believable every made about the life of a struggling and self-destructive artist.It's truly the Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Little Boy. Bad as Gulley is, and is he! he is never in the least unlikeable. Quite an accomplishment for Guinness. Another wonderful choice Neame and Bryan made was to use the outrageous expressionist paintings of an actual artist, John Bratby (1928-1992). They are either very terrible or very wonderful in the eyes of the beholder, but whatever the viewer's choice, for once in film these paintings are completely believable as the real work of a bohemian painter trying to break all the rules of the academy and perhaps succeeding. Finally, Neame and Bryan are to be congratulated on adapting the score Prokofiev wrote for an obscure Soviet film.

Allan_from_Australia This movie showcases the talents of a great actor and should be studied by acting students keen to learn how to adapt a character.Alec Guiness becomes this rather disreputable artist and gives him many saving qualities. Supported by a good cast and free to create one of his better though less known performances Guiness holds you spellbound Joyce Cary wrote the screenplay and the artist Gulley Jimson really comes to life using the talents of Alec Guiness ,Joyce Carey and the expert direction of Robert Neame who possibly had an easy time with this movie simply letting Carey and Guiness do what they do best. That is exercise their Godgiven talents to give the devolving public a Classic movie to remember with great affection.

tedg I am a firm believer in the notion that actors are rare people. They have a set of challenges and concerns that are themselves interesting. Filmmakers have a different, often conflicting set of concerns and challenges. It is usually a disaster to put an actor in charge when all he knows is acting.My favorite example is Al Pacino's "Looking for Richard," but there are tons and tons of examples. Most are like this which consists entirely of defining and displaying an interesting character. Real movielovers will find all such projects unsatisfying.Plus, I'm not one who thinks this man is a great actor.But there is something a bit interesting. The character here is a great artist who cannot seem to pull off the big picture, to make things slide smoothly. The actor is too, in precisely the same ways we see, as if we are watching two layers at the same time.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.