# Rentadick

Rentadick is a 1972 British comedy film, directed by Jim Clark and starring James Booth, Richard Briers, Julie Ege, Ronald Fraser and Donald Sinden. It is a spoof spy/detective picture, the plot of which involves attempts to protect a new experimental nerve gas.

## Main cast

* James Booth as Simon Hamilton
* Richard Briers as Miles Gannet
* Julie Ege as Utta Armitage
* Ronald Fraser as Major Upton
* Donald Sinden as Jeffrey Armitage
* Tsai Chin as Madam Greenfly
* Kenneth Cope as West
* John Wells as Owltruss
* Spike Milligan as customs officer
* Winnie Holman as maid
* Patsy Crowther as old lady
* Patricia Quinn as chauffeuse
* Michael Rothwell as removal man
* Michael Sharvell-Martin as removal man
* Richard Beckinsale as Hobbs
* Derek Griffiths as Henson
* Leon Sinden as Police Inspector
* Cheryl Hall as Maxine
* Michael Bentine as Husein
* Penelope Keith as reporter

## Production

The original script for the film was written by Graham Chapman and John Cleese, both of Monty Python.
The script was bought by David Frost who failed to secure finance, so he sold the script to Ned Sherrin. Sherrin made an appointment with Frank Poole, who ran filmmaking for Rank and that company agreed to finance.
However, the producers made so many changes to the partnership's material (including commissioning additional material from John Fortune and John Wells) that Chapman and Cleese successfully instigated action to have their names removed from the finished print. This left Rentadick with very peculiar on-screen acknowledgements; the only writing credit is given to Fortune and Wells, who are explicitly credited only with "additional dialogue". However, the British company Network released a DVD in 2007 using a print that still shows the names of Cleese and Chapman during the opening titles (frames at 2:00 minutes into the presentation) and uses their names in its promotional material.
Jim Clark says Sherrin offered him the script to direct when Clark was working on X Y & Zee (1972). Clark said he did not "remember the original script" but "in any case I wasn’t going to flounce out of this since I was keen to return to directing and found most of the revamped film amusing. It was a reasonably cheap film."
The script was originally called Rentasleuth but was retitled on the first day of shooting to Rentadick which Clark felt was a terrible title. It sounded like a gay porno movie." Clark later said, "it was a mystery that I was seen as a director of comedy, but the legacy of the Will Hay and George Formby comedies hung over me."
Filming took six weeks mostly at place at a country house near Elstree Studios. Clark was influenced by the Will Hay comedy Ask a Policeman (1939). He wrote "Unfortunately I didn’t have the trio of comics, Hay, Marriott, and Moffat, to work with. But despite the many problems and my almost total inability to pull it off, I enjoyed directing the film and did not think it too bad."
Clark says the film previewed well but it was "slaughtered by the critics and nobody saw the film, which comes up regularly on late night television to embarrass me." Sherrin says Rank lost its entire investment.

## Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The blessed relief of total insanity in the person of Spike Milligan's Arab Customs official ("Any fish derivatives? . . . sodium glutamates? . . . artificial ski slopes? . . . inflatable models of Raquel Welch? . . . hand-carved bidets ?") does not justify the previous ninety minutes of formless boredom."
Leslie Halliwell said: "Ineffective crazy comedy which never takes shape, preferring to aim barbs of satire in all directions."