# Theatre of Blood

Theatre of Blood is a 1973 film about a Shakespearean actor who takes poetic revenge on the critics who denied him recognition.
    Directed by Douglas Hickox. Written by Anthony Greville-Bell.

## Edward Lionheart

* Now, let us see what that stupid cretin Mr. Meredith Merridew had to say about my Titus Andronicus. [reads] "Mr. Lionheart's rendering of the role can only be described as villainous. Laid between the delicately underplayed performances of Miss Lillywhite as Lavinia and Miss Mole as Tamora, one is irresistibly reminded of a ham sandwich." [pause] My reputation.
* So my performance of Richard III cast such a spell upon the audience that it put this reviewer into a "deep sleep from which he awoke much refreshed and relieved by the knowledge that he had been spared the ordeal of attending to the aging matinee idol's ranting and posturing." Well, we shall see if we cannot spur you to more rapt attention with today's performance. "Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes."

## Peregrine Devlin

* You begin to resent an actor if you always have to give him bad notices.
* [examining a note on a gift box] "I am sorry to miss the meeting, but my heart is with you. Dickman." [he opens it and it contains Dickman's bloody heart] It's him, all right. Only Lionheart would have the temerity to rewrite Shakespeare!

## Inspector Boot

* Look, Devlin, when two people have the same motive to murder and one of them is still alive, who would you arrest?

## Dialogue

    George Maxwell: That damn editor's cut the best part of my review!
    Mrs. Maxwell: So I noticed, dear. You ought to have a chat with him.
    George Maxwell: My most provocative comment, too, where I said the leading lady attacked her role with both hands and strangled it to death.
    Edward Lionheart: I always admired you as a critic, Snipe. Your clever use of analogy and metaphor, plus you always strived to be complimentary. But not always complimentary.
    Hector Snipe: Critics make mistakes, Lionheart. We're only human.
    Edward Lionheart: An opinion I find myself incapable of sharing.
    Meredith Merridew: But darling, you... they're not going to start killing critics for giving bad notices, are they?
    Inspector Boot: Well, why not? A play fails; directors, writers, actors... careers ruined. Plenty of motivation there, I should think.
    Inspector Boot: Who hates you enough to kill two of your circle?
    Peregrine Devlin: Critics are likely to make enemies, inspector. You can call it an occupational hazard.
    Peregrine Devlin: Lionheart! What the hell do you want here?
    Edward Lionheart: [picking up the best actor award] This. My just reward. The whole world knows it is mine by right. But you deliberately withheld it from me. You deliberately humiliated me before the press, my public and my peers. It was the culmination of your determined denial of my genius!
    Peregrine Devlin: We've denied you nothing....
    Edward Lionheart: For thirty years, the public has acknowledged that I was the master. And that this year, my season of Shakespeare was the shining jewel in the crown of the immortal Bard.
    Meredith Merridew: [sotto voce, to Chloe Moon] Quite insane!
    Chloe Moon: [sotto voce, to Trevor Dickman] He must be drunk.
    Edward Lionheart: But you, with your overweening malice, give the award to a twitching, mumbling boy who can barely grunt his way through an incomprehensible performance! No. No. It is mine!
    [Lionheart is force-feeding Merridew his pet poodles who have been baked into a pie]
    Edward Lionheart: Will you ever again ruin the reputation of an honest man?
    Meredith Merridew: No.
    Edward Lionheart: Have you learned your lesson?
    Meredith Merridew: Yes.
    Edward Lionheart: Can I be sure you will never again offend me?
    Meredith Merridew: Yes.
    Edward Lionheart: You're right. I can be sure. [quoting Romeo and Juliet] "Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth, Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!"
    Peregrine Devlin: Hello, Edwina. I thought it was you.
    Edwina Lionheart: Well, the brilliant Peregrine Devlin. Wielder of the brutal aphorism, master of the killing phrase, my father's murderer.
    Peregrine Devlin: That's a bit melodramatic, isn't it?
    Edwina Lionheart: Oh, forgive me, I forgot. It was your reverence and admiration that drove him to take his own life.
    Edwina Lionheart: I'm busy, Devlin.
    Peregrine Devlin: Edwina, four of my colleagues have been murdered. And their deaths relate directly to your father's last season.
    Edwina Lionheart: If you were as imaginative in your reviews, Devlin, you'd be a better critic.
    Peregrine Devlin: You don't understand.
    Edwina Lionheart: I understand that the greatest actor of all time never earned your approval for one single performance. Never. Not one good review.
    George Maxwell: You... It's you! But you're dead!
    Edward Lionheart: No. Another critical miscalculation on you part. I am well. It is you who are dead.
    Peregrine Devlin: Lionheart!
    Edward Lionheart: Alive and triumphant. And you thought me slain? Lionheart is immortal! He can never be destroyed, never!
    Peregrine Devlin: Nothing you can do will sway me from my original judgement.
    Edward Lionheart: Your judgement was ill-considered and irresponsible.
    Peregrine Devlin: It was neither. We gave the award to William Woodstock as your performances lacked originality.
    Edward Lionheart: Lacked originality? My Julius Caesar, cut down by a drunken mob in an abandoned warehouse? My Titus Andronicus: This Is Your Dish, Meredith Merridew? My Othello, one of the greatest performances in the history of the theatre?
    Peregrine Devlin: You did kill Larding and the others, didn't you?
    Edward Lionheart: How many actors have you destroyed as you destroyed me? How many talented lives have you cut down with your glib attacks? What do you know of the blood, sweat and toil of a theatrical production? Of the dedication of the men and the women in the noblest profession of them all? How could you know, you talentless fools who spew vitriol on the creative efforts of others because because you lack the ability to create yourselves! No, Devlin, no! I did not kill Larding and the others. PUNISHED them, my dear boy, punished them. Just as you shall have to be punished.
    Peregrine Devlin: Well, get it over with then, just so you don't have to make me listen to that demented rubbish of yours. Go on, kill me then!

## Taglines

* At your own risk
* It's curtains for his critics!
* Vincent Price has reserved a seat for you in the "theatre of blood."
* He gave his critics a bloody and violent taste of their own medicine!

## External links

* Theatre of Blood quotes at the Internet Movie Database