I was watching an English movie on my Zone 2 DVD player when something crossed my mind.
The movie was “Not Only But Always,” a semi-biographical film about the comic partnership of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. It got me to thinking about the peak of their career together, the period from 1964-68 that included their revue “Beyond the Fringe” and their brilliant movie “Bedazzled.”
I’m not sure there was ever a movie that managed to be as funny and also as subversive as “Bedazzled,” and I was stunned to see it with only a 6.8 rating out of 10 on the Internet Movie Database. I looked through some of the comments to see what it was they didn’t like about it.
Someone who gave it a 3/10 rating — either 20 years old, an imbecile or both — said it was extremely inferior to the 2000 remake with Brendan Fraser and Liz Hurley. I stopped reading at that point.
I suppose it was one of the same people who think it’s impossible even to consider someone who played more than 30 years ago as a greatest of all time athlete.
I have written before that one of the great disappointments of my life was having tickets to see Cook and Moore in “Good Evening” on Broadway in February 1974. My first wife and I were only a few blocks away in a hotel, but I got sick and couldn’t make the show. In subsequent years I missed seeing Bruce Springsteen (although I saw him six years later), Mary Chapin Carpenter and Frankie Valli, but “Good Evening” was the only real tragedy.
It’s funny. Dudley Moore is better known for later movies he did in Hollywood — “10” and the two “Arthur” movies, among others — and there were probably more people who saw Cook in his small role in “The Princess Bride” than anything else. Both men died too young, Cook in 1995 at age 57 and Moore in 2002 at age 66.
The BBC movie was both wonderful and sad. Rhys Ifans won a BAFTA award for his portrayal of Cook, who was actually the main character in the movie. Some years after Cook’s death, the BBC rated the top comedians of all time and Peter Cook topped the list. I’m sure the 20-year-old imbecile on IMDB wouldn’t have understood, but I would bet if you asked other comedians from his same era, they would have understood.
The most classic bit he and Moore did together was “One Leg Too Few” from the original “Beyond the Fringe.” They performed it together in another revue in 1989, late in both their lives and almost certainly the last time they appeared together. It was as funny as ever.
Watching Ifans as Cook and Aidan McArdle as Moore in “Not Only But Always,” the one thing difficult to read is how they really felt about each other.. It was clear that Cook wasn’t thrilled with Moore’s success in Hollywood, and while Moore may have been a better actor and also had music on his side, he didn’t have the comedic genius Cook had.
I find myself thinking deep down they probably loved each other, but I would be the first to admit that’s the American in me thinking in terms of show business cliches.
Moore was good on his own, but he only really achieved greatness with Cook.
At least I can crank up my DVD player and watch “Bedazzled” anytime I want.
The good one.