A bit of British anarchism, not in the Ealing style, but rather in its subject (a great use of Prokofiev in the score). Alec Guinness (who wrote the script based on Joyce Cary's novel, and took a Venice Film Festival prize for his performance) plays a painter-pauper, just out of prison, who follows his brush where it will go. And it will go to any large surface, private or public. "Joyce Cary's painter-hero, Gulley Jimson, is a fabulous, lewd creation: the modern artist as a scruffy, dirty little bum. Gulley's antic self-destructiveness is partly based on the behavior of Cary's friend Dylan Thomas, and his approach as a painter is derived from the tradition of William Blake. Alec Guinness's sly, likable Gulley isn't all that one might hope (Guinness lacks passion and innocence and the real fire of insolence), and (this is) a conformist movie about nonconformity-but with that said and out of the way, let's admit how marvelously enjoyable it is." (Pauline Kael)