Cinema: Political Animal

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No Love for Johnny (Rank; Levine), like its zero of a hero, is a political animal that tries to be all things to all men and winds up nobody's nothing, a self-laid goose egg. Yet in its failure this inexpensive ($400,000) British movie exerts a quiet fascination that few pictures possess in success.

Adapted from a novel published posthumously by Wilfred Fienburgh, M.P., the film tells the story of an able, middle-aged Laborite from a Midlands mill town (Peter Finch) who arrives at a climactic (and climacteric) moment in his career. Re-elected with a thumping majority, he expects to be offered a Cabinet post, but for no clear reason finds himself quietly scuppered. The rejection rankles. A child of poverty, the hero has unhappily contracted one of the more dangerous diseases of deficiency: galloping ambition. He finds biological consolation by attaching himself to a gorgeous platinum blonde (Mary Peach) about half his age. He takes political revenge by attaching himself to the bright pink rump of the party. But these two concerns conflict. He misses his big chance to bait the Prime Minister because he has taken an opportunity to bed the blonde; and he loses the blonde because he would obviously rather elevate himself than raise a family. In the end he gets a big desk to pound in the Post Office, but he pays a shameful price.

In this messy little political parable the problem of ambition is curiously misconceived. The hero is described by one colleague as a "grasping and self-important bastard," but he seems no more ambitious than the next man in politics —or indeed in any other career requiring get up and ego. In the script, a man's legitimate ambitions are primly restricted: according to his colleagues, he must do whatever the majority decides is right, and according to the woman he loves, he must subordinate his career to "a life built around his children." In plain English, the moviemakers are saying that Englishmen should be both social irresponsibles and matriarchal vassals. They may be right, but if they are, God save the Queen.