A Voyage Round My Father (1984)

Actors: Laurence Olivier (actor), Alan Bates (actor), Harold Goodwin (actor), John Mortimer (writer), Alvin Rakoff (director), John Mortimer (writer), Norman Bird (actor), Esmond Knight (actor), Patrick Barr (actor), Raymond Huntley (actor), Jane Asher (actress), Anthony Sharp (actor), Alan Cox (actor), Elizabeth Sellars (actress), Michael Aldridge (actor),

Plot: Before creating the beloved courtroom drama Rumpole of the Bailey, writer John Mortimer found inspiration in his own life for this portrait of a difficult but enduring love between father and son in mid-20th-century Britain. Screen legend Laurence Olivier stars as the eccentric patriarch--a blind barrister so stubborn and cantankerous that he refuses to acknowledge his sightlessness. Alan Bates (Gosford Park) portrays his devoted son, who follows his father's footsteps in the law while longing to become a writer, with Jane Asher (Brideshead Revisited) as his wife. Adapted for the screen by Mortimer himself and filmed largely on location at his family estate in bucolic Oxfordshire, this production garnered multiple awards, including an International Emmy for best drama. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, it captures the special bond between father and son, which at times seems unbearable--but ultimately unbreakable.

Keywords: amateur-theater, atheism, barrister, based-on-play, blindness, boarding-school, cynicism, divorce-lawyer, eccentric, england
Genres: Drama,

Quotes:

Clifford Mortimer: [From the Fortress-Garden] HAVEN'T THOSE VISITORS LEFT YET?

John Mortimer: Why did he not blaspheme? Beat his head against the pitch-black walls around him. Why didn't he curse God?

Clifford Mortimer: [From bedroom] My tie! Oh God, where's my tie? If only you knew the loneliness of getting dressed!

Clifford Mortimer: When I rise to cross-question I will not be interrupted!::Judge: Gentlemen, gentlemen, please! Now, what was your question?::Clifford Mortimer: I have forgotten it. My learned friend's remark had the effect he no doubt intended and I have forgotten my question!::Boustead: Sir, this is absurd!::Clifford Mortimer: Wait! I've remembered it again...

Clifford Mortimer: This coffee's frozen, like a sort of Arctic mud.

John Mortimer: You think of how people tell you it's meant to feel: sudden freedom, the end of dependance. You walk into the sun and no-one is taller than you, and you are in no-one else's shadow. But I know how I felt. Lonely.

John Mortimer: Don't be angry.::Clifford Mortimer: I'm always angry! When I'm dying...

Clifford Mortimer: If they ever give us another War, avoid the temptation to do anything Heroic! That's my advice to you.

Clifford Mortimer: You're alone in this world, and there's nothing anyone can tell you about it!::Sons as a Boy: Wah!::Mother: Oh, never crying!::Clifford Mortimer: Say "Rats!" It's impossible to cry if you say "Rats!", it's something to do with the muscles of the face.::Sons as a Boy: [Walking to the car, off to boarding school] Rats! Rats! Rrrrrats!

Clifford Mortimer: Never let anyone deceive you into thinking that the world was created in six days. Six days labour wouldn't produce one primitive earthworm! The evolution of the horse was a most torturous process! [Shakes head] So, none of this "six days" nonsense.