The Naked Civil Servant (British Telefilm/Autobiography/Gay)
Picture: C Sound: C+ Extras: B- Telefilm: B-
Quentin
Crisp became a star in his own right in the later years of his life after
decades of sexual oppression and battling homophobia in his home country of
England and second home in New York City, U.S.A., succeeding to the extent that
you may have seen him without knowing it.
Jack Gold’s The Naked Civil
Servant (1975) adapts Crisp’s autobiography (teleplay here by Philip
Mackie) with a chillingly dead on performance by John Hurt as Crisp (born Denis
Pratt) at about the time he decides to annoy people with cross-dressing and
becomes a nude male model.
This was
all before WWII, so you can imagine the trouble this caused then. As a result, he was/is seen as a hero to many
and ahead of his time. The telefilm
recreates the time period nicely and the performances all around are good,
though Hurt is one of the best actors of his generation and shows this once
again here. This runs 78 minutes in all
and holds up well over 30 years later, though more could have been said or done
despite censorship restrictions of the time.
Crisp appearing at the beginning is also odd.
The 1.33
X 1 image looks like it was shot on film (16mm) and that the version here is an
analog PAL transfer, which would explain its softness. Where are the film elements? Unknown.
However, it is still watchable and the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is
clearer, especially for its age. Extras
include Crisp looking at U.S. and U.K. culture in Déjà vu and an audio commentary by Gold, Hurt and executive
producer Verity Lambert.
- Nicholas Sheffo
