Morgan: a Suitable Case for Treatment

Morgan: a Suitable Case for Treatment (Karel Reisz, 1966) wr. David Mercer, released in the USA as Morgan!

David Warner, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Stephens, Irene Handl, Bernard Bresslaw

After his wife leaves him for his former best friend, a failed London artist begins his descent into madness in trying to win her back. IMDb.

Morgan Delt is a failed and irresponsible left-wing artist whose Communist parents own a fish and chips shop in downmarket London. He is also an aggressive and self-admitted dreamer obsessed with Karl Marx, gorillas and stopping his beautiful wife from marrying his former best friend. He uses his rich fantasy world as refuge from external reality, where his unconventional behavior lands him in a divorce from his wife, trouble with the police and, ultimately, incarceration in an insane asylum. IMDb.

I vaguely remember being very impressed with this film which ended, I dimly recalled, with a man in a gorilla suit on a rubbish tip. Surely this was an allegory with great significance for understanding life as we now know it (in the 1960s). Having watching it again in 2019, it now just seems like an OTT comedy about a guy who's a bit of an artist and a bit of a loony behaving in a self-indulgent way to attract attention to his childish self.


Garry Gillard | reviews | New: 12 Jun, 2019 | Now: 6 July, 2019