Sixpence to Gawp

Plays within plays always seem a bit phoney, like Paintings of paintings within paintings. Where the actors who are acting as actors are, at the same time, Pretending to be early 19th-century institutionalised Psychotics, the whole affair becomes quite grotesque. "Ut then that, of course, is what is intended. A group inmates at Charenton portray for the physician s^Perintendent, his family and the public the assassination of Marat as written and produced by the Marquis de Sade, himself an inpatient (he died there a Cr?t'3at much historical). first blush this film appeared to me to be a load of rubbish. Two weeks later, after careful thought and reflection, that is the way it still seems. Acting, camera ^'ork, use of faded colour and general production are, et Us admit it, a tour de force quite magnificent, ^pecially the orgy of rape and destruction that closes film with a great chaotic orgasm. But so what? ^essagewise, one was left a bit short.