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Prick Up Your Ears | 
 enlarge | Director: Stephen Frears
Actors: Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave, Frances Barber, Janet Dale
Studio: MGM Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $2.92
You Save: $12.06 (81%)
New (45) Used (17) Collectible (1) from $2.88
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 43979
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 110
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: M102557
ISBN: 0792860772
UPC: 027616906908
EAN: 9780792860778
ASIN: B0001V6ZJI
Theatrical Release Date: May 8, 1987
Release Date: June 15, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: ******BRAND NEW****** ** Over 1.5 million orders shipped worldwide and more than 500 000 items in stock, BUY FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE, ESTABLISHED SINCE 1998 - INETVIDEO ~~~
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Product Description
Gary Oldman (Hannibal) and Alfred Molina (Identity) star in this stunning true story about a long-term love affair that ends with a shocking murder/suicide. Told in sizzling flashbacks and forwards (Elle) this sharp pithy exuberant and unflinching film (The Hollywood Reporter) from director Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things) and writer Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George) mesmerizes you holding you in its thrall (Los Angeles) from first frame to last.Frustrated writers co-conspirators friends and lovers Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell (Oldman and Molina) serve respectively as prot g and mentor in each other s life until Orton s breakout success heightens Halliwell s sense of his own failure. With the young playwright s every new achievement Halliwell s diminishing role leads him to a desperate attempt to keep them as equals forever.System Requirements: Running Time 110 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 027616906908 Manufacturer No: M102557
Amazon.com
Joe Orton was briefly the embodiment of a certain kind of '60s rebel, and Stephen Frears's film adaptation of the British playwright's biography successfully conjures up that outrageous spirit. The hostile, fussy codependency between Orton (Gary Oldman) and his brooding lover Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina) forms the centerpiece of a story that features not only Orton's success and his brutal demise at Halliwell's hand, but also a vivid depiction of what gay sexuality meant in a repressive era. What really propels it are the performances--Oldman's naughty, overgrown boy could believably have written Orton's romps, and the powder-keg priss rendered by Molina helps establish motivations that the script lacks. It's always good to see Vanessa Redgrave (ideal as Orton's agent), and Julie Walters has a hysterically unrecognizable bit as Orton's exasperated mum. If the film is a bit aloof, it's also crisp and often acidly funny (Orton and Halliwell do jail time for writing luridly phony synopses in library books). Frears has done a memorable bit in bringing both a man and his time to life. --Steve Wiecking
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 A Major Achievement in Film Biography and 'Period Piece' September 8, 2004
37 out of 39 found this review helpful
Stephen Frears continues to deliver extraordinary films (Dirty Pretty Things, The Grifters, Dangerous Liaisons, My Beautiful Launderette, Loving Walter, High Fidelity among others) and returning now to his 1987 PRICK UP YOUR EARS not only shows this excellent film aging well, but now it shows how keenly Frears is able to depict a period in time. Set in the 1960s, Frears bases his story on the biography of Joe Orton (British playwright whose plays included 'Entertaining Mr. Sloane' and 'Loot'). And while many other directors and screenwriters struggle with the format of "interviewing" people who knew the subject versus creating a novel/story based on bits and pieces of fact and fiction, Frears uses both these approaches with consummate skill. Joe (John) Orton (Gary Oldman in a definitive performance) was an openly gay playwright in a period of time in England when being gay was still punishable by imprisonment. His childhood in Leicester is explored (with Julie Walters amazingly fine as his weird mother) as he wishes to become an actor. He moves to London where he becomes involved with one Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina in a tour de force, over the top raging Queen role) and lives in an openly gay, albeit bizarre love/hate relationship. The two struggle to become established as actors and writers, but it is Orton who succeeds, only after a six month prison sentence for 'indecency' during which time he writes his first play. When Orton and Halliwell are released form prison, Orton's star ascends due in part to the wise counsel and friendship of Peggy Ramsey (Vanessa Redgrave in peak form). Halliwell ages (he is eight years Orton's senior), resents Orton's success not only with the theater and money, but with the near daily dalliances in toilets and lurid spaces where he seeks sex. The ending of the biography is well known and opens the film, so it is not inappropriate to say that Halliwell's mind is finally broken and he bludgeons Orton to death and then commits suicide. Only Orton's diaries are left to document his truly strange life. Given the content of the story, it may seem to some that this is a grisly tale and it might well have been in less capable hands. But with Frears' directorial gifts and absolutely first class performances by Oldman, Molina, Redgrave, Frances Barber, Julie Walters and the rest of the cast, this film finds humor, tenderness, meaningful insights into the artist's mind, and what life was like in England under the threat of a legal system that had changed little since Oscar Wilde's tragedy. The cinematography and music are excellent and the flavor of the 60s is captured completely. A splendid film, an excellent biography, and a most entertaining experience!
get this if you like good writing and exceptional acting June 3, 2000
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
At last. This film has been unavailable on VHS for a couple of years now. I seriously contemplated stealing the copy from my local video store but couldn't do it. The whole cast is superb. The story is extremely interesting and it's all true. Oldman is Joe Orton, the uninhibited English playwright who was the toast of the town in 60's London. Young and successful he lives life to its limits, hindered only by his mentor, lover and eventual murderer Kenneth, exceptionally portrayed by Alfred Molina (who has fallen far, now starring in a horrendous American sitcom called Ladies' Man). Their story is very engrossing. Vanessa Redgrave is the literary agent and this performance made her one of my fave female actors of all time. She's excellent. Get this movie!
DVD Pick Up Your Ears July 9, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
DVD arrived in goodly time and in great quality... the movie itself wasn't as good as I had remembered it, but the service was A-1.
A great biographical representation. June 28, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Joe Orton was the, "bit of rough", Leicester lad who became the voice of edgy, sexual charged playwriting in the 60's, exactly the kind of representaions peole were seeking at the time.
The film depicts his life and rise to fame beautifully, exploring his sexually charged adoloscence,his early admission to RADA, his emerging and confident sexuality and meeting with Halliwell, throught to his final success and the destruction of his realtionship with Halliwell which led to their deaths; Halliwell battered Joe to death with a hammer before overdosing himself on a barbiturate cocktail (bizarrely Halliwell died first). The casting is perfect and the lead actors are immensley evocative and emotive. There is a delicious cameo by Julie Walters as Orton's Mum, too afraid to answer the door to a theatre offical seeking Joe because she has left her teeth upstairs. Frances Barber is excellent and loyal as Joe's Sister, Vanessa Redgrave is slightly cold and bitchy as his agent, particularly with women. An excellent depiction of Joe's high octane, interesting and sadly short life, I was only sorry that the "Morrocan Holiday" scene did not feature a representaion of the comic actor Kenneth Williams(of "Carry On" fame), a dear freind of Joe's who often holidayed with Joe and Halliwell. Not an easy film but a very good and beautifully depicted one.
Fnas of Joe may wish to know that Leicester City Council have now marked the council house he grew up in with a blue plaque, it is situated off Saffron Lane, an estate of houses bulit in the 1930's.
Neglected classic April 27, 2005
This is one of the best film biographies of all time. Gary Oldman (fresh from his triumph in "Sid & Nancy") and Alfred Molina (the greatest actor of his generation - look at this film along with "Frida" and "Enchanted April" and ask yourself if you don't agree) play the in-your-face gay writers Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. This film, based on the biography by John Lahr, tells their whole sorted story - how they met, became lovers, lived together, went to goal (apart from one another), and, finally, grew estranged as Orton found fame as playwright and Halliwell slipped into mental illness. The two leads should have received Oscar nominations for their work here (indeed this film, the director, Vanessa Redgrave and the screenplay should all have been nominated). Director Stephen Frears hasn't spared his audience any of the graphic details. Orton was a sexual compulsive who liked to pick up strangers in public lavatories and bus stations. The camera never flinches. It all here - even the gruesome way their story ends. Fascinating meterial. Don't miss this one. My one complaint about the DVD - no extras - nothing from the director, no documentary footage of Orton or any of his television appearances. I recommend Lahr's book, as well as Orton's plays and those wonderful "Orton Diaries."
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