Derek and Clive Get the Horn

I describe this as disturbing not because of the material but because of what this film showed of Peter Cook. I liked Ad Nauseam as an audio piece of work and was quite excited at the prospect of seeing this. However I found the experience of watching this just depressing. It's not funny and Peter Cook comes over as a very bitter character. In public Cook needed to be constantly mocking everything around him. I'm sure psychiatrists could spin a few theories as to why he was like this. He did actually visit a psychiatrist for many years the reason being, according to himself, that he had been putting on silly voices for so long he didn't know who he was. It's a self defence mechanism to be constantly funny and to belittle anyone who dares to be serious about life. Of course Cook was a genius, there is absolutely no doubt about that. However he was a genius in quite a narrow way. What he was good at he was the best at: being incredibly witty and spinning wonderful flights of surreal fancy. Sometimes his flight of fancy had an almost childish innocent charm and sometimes they were dragged up from the lowest depths of the human psyche.

Dudley Moore was a huge talent in his own right but on Peter Cook's turf, improvisational comedy, he only just managed to keep up. It's to his credit that he managed to play Cook's game at all, most of us would have just sat in awe, too intimidated to speak. However Dudley Moore had a wonderful talent of his own which was comedy acting. Peter Cook as a comedy actor stunk, let's be honest. He was the king of off the cuff quick fire genius but if he had to work to script, with the exception of 3 minute comedy sketches, he fell flat. He couldn't do what Dudley had achieved in Hollywood and he knew it. Dud was no longer his verbal punch bag and had out grown him in every way.

Dudley Moore looked to me like he hated every moment of this film and he seemed bored by and embarrassed of the obscenity. Not surprising considering he was 44 years old. This film charts the disintegration of both their professional and personal relationship. Dudley Moore didn't show up for the third day. I think they performed live together only once more after this but only after one of the Pythons, John Cleese I think, begged Dud to do it.

When I heard Cook's "cunt kicker in" monologue on audio I found it very funny because of the sheer extremity. Derek and Clive at their best were cathartic for the audience and liberating. Not because we are laughing at the idea of a man really committing such an act but because there is a psychological release to hear such things. When all is said and done they are only words and no matter what we say out loud it doesn't matter. Nobody really gets hurt and our head doesn't fall off.

However seeing Cook saying this and other material wasn't funny. It was dark and weird. This film leaves us with a sense that Cook had, at least at that point in his life, a major problem with women. He seems to be exorcising some very deep and very dark part of his own soul. To find such material funny we are trusting in the artists intelligence and decency. We have to believe that for the artist the material is nothing more than empty ridiculous words chosen to break every taboo that society has. I believe that earlier Derek and Clive was a joyous exploration of all the things we aren't supposed to say. However by the time this film was made Cook's misogyny, alcoholism and jealousy of Dudley Moore were destroying both him and his profound and wonderful talent.

Studio stuff worth watching.

It is hard to see why people say that in this film Dudley and Peter show they dislike each other so much. My impression is that they were both very fond of one and other and at many times this shows my looks of admiration whilst one ad-libs. It is likely during their love & hate relationship that each admirers the others comic prowess. I would not ever consider them as comic genius as this sort of comedy is something that is in all of us. They just have the 'don't care' attitude to let rip. They do say things that you wouldn't usually hear yet the capacity to say it and understand it lies within us all - it's just been suppressed by the crud we endure today as 'comedy' and the political systems in place today curbing freedom of speech.

I enjoy this form of comedy Derek and CLive do and am appreciative of material such as this. Talking boll0cks and being stupid is what we need to see more of and this film delivers it - though anything else would likely be imitation.

I've no doubt that though Cook (due to his own personal feelings and struggles in his life at that time)comes out with the odd put down to Moore, my conclusion is that Moore was Cooks' rock and punching bag. I'm sure Moore knowingly accepted this whole-heartedly and this reinforced the magic chemistry of their friendship between them and appreciation of each's well of talents.

They unleash them here but it would be easy to see that they were capable of being a hell of a lot naughtier ! Sadly, all good things come to an end.

Watch it with a few beers and with your friends and feel alive.

whilst as a comedy this film is very patchy and sometimes excruciatingly vulgar, what makes it watchable is the Moore/Cook relationship. Cook is by far the funnier, more dedicated and original.his quick-witted thought processes are brilliant though i did sometimes wonder if he was simply trying to be as shocking as possible simply for the sake of it. Moore often seems past caring,often simply following cook's lead but perhaps it is the strain of Cook's obvious resentment that knobbles him. certainly he seems to be struggling to keep up with Cook's genius, but then i've always felt Cook was the more talented. the material is often of a sexual nature, sometimes (mock?) misogynistic and swearing is prolific. watching this it's clear to see how comedy today is often very derivative. The horse racing sketch, for example, blows the juvenile "dicks and pussies" speech from team America out of the water. if only every drunk and stoner could be as spontaneously funny.

When two ordinary blokes spend an hour swearing at each other, it begins to pall after the first 30 seconds. When Peter Cook and Dudley Moore do it, you realize just how incredibly funny they were. Of course it's appalling, yes it's disgusting and as for downright filthy, well, Derek and Clive invented it. As previous comments have said, this was made at the time when Moore had just broken through into Hollywood stardom while Cook was left behind, a comic genius that nobody wanted. It goes without saying that Peter Cook was indeed the funniest man that ever lived, just listen to anything he's ever recorded or filmed. Including this magnificent testimony to the most scabrous comic invention ever to say the word "Fuc-k". But was he really furious with Dud for making it big? I don't think so. Although his alter-ego Clive might have a few words to say about it. All of them prefaced with "fuc-king cun-t" Brilliant stuff, watch it if you can find it and split your sides laughing. Then spend the next couple of hours reciting the filth you have just watched. I bet you will.

The last stand of Cook and Moore.This seminal work from aussie director and music video legend Mulcahy is a fitting epitaph to the disintegrating comedy partnership of Pete and Dud during the recording sessions for what would later become the ad naeseum album.The film is by and large a torrent of swearing, drunken verbal abuse,and generally obnoxious behaviour documented for public consumption.If you are a christian,a woman or a person of high moral value look away now. In an age of political correctness this film is a huge tonic if you don`t take it seriously. (10/10)