He is a man of words and great expectation, talking of literary extravagance and a work in progress that will devastate the publishing elite. He has no money, only a thousand ideas. Not surprisingly, he captivates the flacid imaginations of those around him with language that soars like a bird. Simon is influenced and encouraged by this hobo charmer, enough to sit down, whenever he has a moment, and scribble a monstrous, angry, obscene poem that has terrible and extraordinary consequences. Hartley has written a dark and dangerous fable.
Every image has an intensity, every word a place to go.
Hartley weaves his spell, as he has done before, with pristine originality. Hal's and Hartley's. Ryan, who returns for second helpings, as the Devil, in Hartley's next piece, The Book Of Life, makes his motion picture debut as Mr Fool. He is very different from Hal's regulars, Robert Burke and Martin Donovan, in that he is expressive and animated. There is a physicality about him, which would have been anathema in the early days.