The Story of a very successful transplant! After a freak accident dismembers Edwin Anthony’s (Hywel Bennett, Endless Night, Twisted Nerve) member, master surgeon Sir Emmanuel Whitbread (Denholm Elliott, Raiders of the Lost Art, Trading Places) successfully performs the world’s first penis transplant which Edwin names “Percy”. But when Edwin begins to experience identity problems, he decides to investigate the life and loves of “Percy’s” former owner. Can a sincere young man find love among the world’s most beautiful women when guided by an organ with a mind of its own? Screen goddesses Britt Ekland (The Wicker Man, The Man with the Golden Gun) and Elke Sommer (A Shot in the Dark, The Oscar) co-star in this 1971 British cult comedy directed by Ralph Thomas (The High Commissioner, Deadlier Than the Male), that also features a rocking soundtrack of original songs written by Ray Davies and performed by The Kinks, including the hit “God’s Children.”
As embodied by Alan Bates, Butley falls back on the surgically precise wit and savage eloquence that helped put him in his current circumstances in the first place. The blitzkrieg of vitriolic commentary with which Butley engages lovers, students, rivals, and allies, all with equal ferocity, becomes a glass bottom boat illuminating the churning depths of his bankrupted soul. Acclaimed playwright Harold Pinter, in what Time Magazine hailed as “a quite superior directorial debut,” turns author Simon Gray’s single-set, dialogue driven stage play into an irresistible dynamic visual experience that tracks Bates’ hilarious and fearless performance with cunning precision.
Bates and an expert supporting cast, including Oscar® winner Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy), joust with a sly, self-referencing wit and an unselfconscious exuberance that is breathtaking. With every verbal parry and valedictory flourish of wordplay, Butley’s life becomes more of an inescapable bear trap of thwarted ambition, clandestine affection, and squandered brilliance.
