Peter Medak's devastating and ultimately blood-curdling satire on the British upper classes, based on the popular stage play by Peter Barnes, who also wrote the screenplay, The Ruling Class stars Peter O'Toole in a demanding role and inspired comic performance as the 14th Earl of Gurney, who arrives fresh from an insane asylum to claim his inheritance. He is a gentle soul who believes himself to be Jesus Christ, in fact the entire Trinity (he sleeps on a wooden cross). His mad goodness is contrasted with the rest of the family's sane evil, and it is his slow “cure” that offers Medak the chance to lay waste to the illusion that the British aristocracy is salvageable. When finally “cured” O'Toole becomes a bloodthirsty Tory (a la Jack the Ripper), who is therefore sane and eminently acceptable to the House of Lords.