Withnail and I (Bloomsbury Film Classics)

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Cut to Danny and Withnail on the sofa. Presuming Ed is sat silently in an adjacent chair. The Camberwell Carrot is complete and is indeed of prodigious proportions. As Danny lights it, we see only the end, but as he hands it to Withnail we see the true size. It is enormous.

The intruder comes into the bedroom with a flashlight. Withnail makes a pathetic moaning noise and tries to hide himself with the covers. He passes by the front door and starts going upstairs to bed. Withnail follows him with the shotgun.In 1996, the Los Angeles Times reported the film (and the associated drinking game) had achieved cult status prior to its home video re-release in the United States. [60] This is without doubt the best British comedy of all time. It’s sharp, classy and carries a stage-like atmosphere throughout. I know where you are. You're at Crow Crag. [To Withnail] I've been watching you. Especially you. Prancing like a tit. You want working on, boy. when i watched this film for the first time i laughed like a lunatic. i've repeatedly watched it over and over an it still has the same affect on me. this is the best comdedy i've ever seen: a brilliantly sharp script accompanied by class actors!; what more could you ask for? brilliant!

The ghost of Zeffirelli and his film version of Romeo and Juliet haunts Withnail and I. It is there at the outset when the furiously jealous Withnail reads about a young actor who has secured a “plum role for top Italian director”. As Withnail rages, “Course he does. Probably on a tenner a day. And I know what for. Two pound ten a tit and a fiver for his arse…” Of course, the “boy” in question is Bruce Robinson himself, in a direct autobiographical reference to his own experience on the set of Romeo and Juliet. But that is just the beginning, as the whole plot of Withnail and I is based on this conflation of youthful sexual appeal and commercial exchange. Withnail persuades his wealthy Uncle Monty to lend him his cottage in the country in return for a vague suggestion that the “I” character (called “Marwood” in the screenplay, though he is never referred to by name in the film) will repay him with sexual favours, a plan, of course, that “I” is blissfully unaware of. We're doing a feature for Country Life. Survey of rural types. You know... farmers, travelling tinkers, milkmen; that sort of thing. Surrounded by trees and nature, one feels a glorious stirring of the senses. A rejection of poisonous inhibition and a fecund emotion of the soul.In September 1969, two unemployed young actors, flamboyant alcoholic Withnail and contemplative Marwood, live in a messy flat in Camden Town, London. Their only regular visitor is their drug dealer, Danny. One morning, the pair squabble about housekeeping and then leave to take a walk. In Regent's Park, they discuss the poor state of their acting careers and the desire for a holiday; Marwood proposes a trip to a rural cottage near Penrith owned by Withnail's wealthy uncle Monty. They visit Monty that evening at his luxurious Chelsea house. Monty is a melodramatic aesthete, who Marwood infers is homosexual. The three briefly drink together as Withnail casually lies to Monty about his acting career. He further deceives Monty by implying that Marwood attended Eton College, whilst a lithograph of Harrow School seen earlier in the flat suggests that both Monty and Withnail were educated there. Withnail persuades his uncle to lend them the cottage key and they leave. It is the most shattering experience of a young man's life when one morning he awakes and quite reasonable says to himself: [He presses the photograph to his chest] I will never play the Dane. When that moment comes, one's ambition ceases. Don't you agree?