Butley

A tour de force for Alan Bates in a filmed play - made for the American Film Theatre - of Simon Gray's drama about an academic whose wit and know-all attitude lacerates those around him (Jessica Tandy, Richard O'Callaghan, Susan Engel). In the end, though, his self-destructiveness hurts no one but himself. Playwright Harold Pinter directs with a typically laconic style that has little to do with cinema.