Based on 'Don Among The Dead Men' by C.E. Vulliamy, this little-seen British film stars Leo McKern as Professor Bowles-Ottery, a misanthrope who dreams of becoming a 'benevolent' dictator. During a live television interview, he rants: "We must eliminate the mad, sterilise the incompetent. We must clean up the Human Race or else we will all perish!".
He gets his chance to put his theories into effect when he accidentally invents a gas capable of inducing a drunken state of euphoria, leading to death. Soon he begins using it on people he regards as serious threats to society.
Anyone who thinks of British film comedy of the '60's purely in terms of 'Carry On', 'Doctor In The House' and Norman Wisdom should be made to watch this. It is so blackly comic as to defy description. McKern is wonderful as the mad Professor, and the supporting cast includes Dennis Price and Leonard Rossiter. Don Chaffey finished the film when original director Robert 'Kind Hearts & Coronets' Hamer died suddenly. Chaffey would later work with McKern on the T.V. series 'The Prisoner' ( 1967 ).
He gets his chance to put his theories into effect when he accidentally invents a gas capable of inducing a drunken state of euphoria, leading to death. Soon he begins using it on people he regards as serious threats to society.
Anyone who thinks of British film comedy of the '60's purely in terms of 'Carry On', 'Doctor In The House' and Norman Wisdom should be made to watch this. It is so blackly comic as to defy description. McKern is wonderful as the mad Professor, and the supporting cast includes Dennis Price and Leonard Rossiter. Don Chaffey finished the film when original director Robert 'Kind Hearts & Coronets' Hamer died suddenly. Chaffey would later work with McKern on the T.V. series 'The Prisoner' ( 1967 ).