Otley (film)

Otley is a 1968 British comedy thriller film.

Outline

Gerald Arthur Otley (Tom Courtenay), a hapless and light-fingered antiques dealer, is mistaken for a spy and grows into the part - to such an extent that the real spy (Romy Schneider) falls in love with him. The action shifts from one English situation to another: Rolls Royces are driven, tea is drunk, and bacon sandwiches are fried and thrown to the dogs.

The locations and situations have details associated with the era: a houseboat colony on the Thames, clubs - Playboy health and golf, an explosion in Notting Hill Gate tube station, a driving test taken in a Vauxhall Viva that turns into a car chase with a Ford Zephyr (or Zodiac), a pile-up of police mopedallists, murder by coach in a farmyard, and so on.

The film was adapted by Dick Clement (who also directed) and Ian Le Frenais from a book by Martin Waddell, and made at Shepperton Studios.

A number of later famous actors appear, among them Leonard Rossiter, James Bolam (Cockney accent replacing Geordie), Phyllida Law and Freddie Jones.

Cast

• Tom Courtenay as Gerald Arthur Otley
• Romy Schneider as Imogen
• Alan Badel as Sir Alex Hadrian
• James Villiers as Hendrickson
• Leonard Rossiter as Johnson
• Freddie Jones as Philip Proudfoot
• Fiona Lewis as Lin
• James Bolam as Albert
• James Cossins as Geffcock
• James Maxwell as Rollo
• Edward Hardwicke as Lambert
• Ronald Lacey as Curtis
• Phyllida Law as Jean
• Geoffrey Bayldon as Inspector Hewett
• Frank Middlemass as Bruce

References

• Otley at the Internet Movie Database