Decline and Fall ... of a Bird Watcher
Cast & Crew
John Krish
Robin Phillips
Michael Elwyn
Norman Scace
John Glynne Jones
Donald Sayne-smith
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Bird watching is the favorite pastime of Paul Pennyfeather, a sensitive, serious young divinity student at Oxford. After being set upon by some drunken undergraduates who remove his trousers, he stumbles over a girl and is expelled for indecent conduct. Through a disreputable employment agency, he gets a teaching job at a seedy Welsh boarding school for boys presided over by the flamboyant Dr. Fagan. Also on the staff are Mr. Prendergast, an old-maidish former clergyman; Captain Grimes, a one-legged bigamist who has opportunistic designs on Fagan's unattractive daughter Flossie; and Solomon Philbrick, a criminal who serves as Fagan's butler. On Sports Day, everything goes wrong as rain pours down, Prendergast accidentally shoots a student in the foot with the starter's gun, and the nefarious Philbrick sees to it that the silver trophies are stolen. For Paul, however, the day is saved when he meets a wealthy patron named Margot Beste-Chetwynde, who asks him to tutor her son at her lavish estate. After being easily seduced, Paul proposes marriage to Margot and is accepted. Before the ceremony, Margot gets Paul to go to Tangier on a seemingly innocent business trip. As a result, Paul finds himself convicted of trafficking in prostitution and sent to prison. There he encounters two old acquaintances, Philbrick and Captain Grimes. Margot, after marrying the Home Secretary, arranges for Paul's release by a complicated maneuver in which it is stated that Paul died in Dr. Fagan's new nursing home. And a corpse for Paul is provided when Prendergast conveniently comes to an untimely end. Now officially dead, Paul is able to assume a new identity and set out on a new life.
Director
John Krish
Cast
Robin Phillips
Michael Elwyn
Norman Scace
John Glynne Jones
Donald Sayne-smith
John Cater
Kenneth Griffith
Donald Wolfit
Colin Blakely
Jonathan Collins
Robert Harris
Leo Mckern
Michael Newport
Patience Collier
David Mcalister
Katy Wild
Geneviève Page
Michael Nightingale
Helen Christie
Joan Sterndale-bennett
Clifton Jones
Ann Lancaster
Michael Hawkins
Roland Curram
Griffith Jones
Jeremy Child
Anne De Vigier
Joan Haythorne
Rodney Bewes
Sarah Atkinson
Jill Kerman
George Pravda
Marne Maitland
Duncan Lamont
Ivor Dean
Felix Aylmer
Victor Maddern
John Trenaman
Kenneth J. Warren
Tom Clegg
Christopher Banks
Jack Watson
Donald Sinden
Paul Rogers
Roy Evans
Patrick Magee
Ken Wynne
Paul Curran
Crew
Maurice Askew
Jonathan Barry
Peter Bolton
John Bramall
Desmond Dickinson
Edward Dorian
Anna Duse
Wally Fairweather
Ernie Farrer
Ivan Foxwell
Ivan Foxwell
Ernest Gasser
Ron Goodwin
Alan Hackney
Julie Harris
Douglas Hermes
Alice Holmes
Peter Keen
Morton M. Lewis
Archie Ludski
Doris Martin
Sydney Streeter
Tony White
Hugh Whitemore
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Copyright length: 90 min. Released in Great Britain in 1968.
