AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK is a exceptionally well done film about the last years of the infamous Quentin Crisp (born Denis Charles Pratt, 25 December 1908 - 21 November 1999), an English writer and raconteur - one who is skilled at regurgitating funny anecdotes he heard someone else say first. Writer Brian Fillis has provided a highly polished script for director Richard Laxton, the two thus being able to bring to life this icon of homosexuality in the 1970s who, after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, came to America to do 'speaking engagements', better described as cabaret comedy/philosophy routines. He dressed effeminately because that is the way he saw himself, and he adapted to life in New York with a joy that made people notice and respect him finally.
John Hurt brings a brilliant luster to his role as the strange but lovely elderly Crisp who sits before audiences and says what comes to his mind. He is befriended by Christopher Street editor Phillip Steel (Dennis O'Hare) who gives him work as a movie critic, noticed by promoter Connie Clausen (Swoosie Kurtz) who schedules him heavily in nightclubs as an act, shy painter Patrick Angus (Jonathan Tucker) whom he champions among galleries, and kooky performance artist Penny Arcade (Cynthia Nixon). At the height of his popularity he makes a comments about AIDS being a 'fad', something that unites gays with a disease that Crisp claims is just what the straight public wants, and his popularity among his audience wanes. He discovers Angus is stricken with the disease and mourns his too soon death, and is sheltered by Steel as he grows into a fragile very elderly 91 year old. Throughout the film Hurt glows as the strange but somehow lovable Crisp, showing us all a side of a man who has been too often dismissed as a weird one. This is a very tender film, complemented by a first class cast, and one that deserves very wide attention.
Grady Harp
