For me, comfort films often revolve around specific, memorable moments—whether it’s the resurrection scene in The Matrix or Dizzy’s “I got to have you” in Starship Troopers. However, one film that never fails to cheer me up is Tony Hancock’s 1961 comedy The Rebel.
I first saw it in the 1980s on TV, after my dad quoted one of the great moments where Hancock offers a hunk of cheese to a beatnik, Nanette Newman, and with slack-jawed terror, asks, “You do eat food?” Newman, the British star from commercials and films like The Stepford Wives, appears in a striking look—white face paint, Nefertiti eyeliner, and a copper-colored hairdo—right when the Beatles were abandoning their teddy boy quiff.
The Rebel is full of brilliant moments: Hancock’s absurd tactic to get a seat on a packed train (nowadays, impossible); his disapproving refusal of “frothy” coffee; Oliver Reed’s brooding in a Parisian café discussing art; and, of course, Hancock’s unforgettable painting sequence involving a bicycle and a cow. But my absolute favorite is when critic George Sanders mocks Hancock’s art, dismissively questioning, “Who painted that – the cow?”
Known as Call Me Genius in the US, the film never really made a splash stateside, which is a shame because Hancock’s character—an office drone who’s intellectually ambitious but always thwarted—is one of the most uniquely relatable figures in British comedy. Unlike American characters like George Costanza, Hancock’s character is less about frantic self-loathing and more about a resigned, almost fatalistic sense of mediocrity. It’s a character who resonates with anyone who’s ever felt stuck in life, but with the added comedy of how hard he clings to the hope that things will get better.
There’s something deeply joyful about watching Tony Hancock at the peak of his comedic powers, embodying the “intellectually ambitious but perpetually thwarted” persona. And beyond its comedic genius, The Rebel is a portal into a world that’s almost gone—a 1960s Britain still caught in the grips of pre-pop cultural transformation. For me, it’s not just a funny film but a snapshot of simpler times spent with my dad, sharing laughs as we lounged on the couch.
If there’s one film that always lifts my spirits, it’s The Rebel—a nostalgic reminder of family, humor, and the joy of being entertained by something that never fails to make you smile.
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