The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer

The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer is a 1970 British satirical film starring Peter Cook, and co-written by Cook, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Kevin Billington, who directed the film. The film was devised and produced by David Frost under the pseudonym "David Paradine". Cleese and Chapman began writing the script following patronage from Frost. Cook and Billington were later called upon to complete the writing as, according to Cleese, he and Chapman "had no idea what they were doing". The film satirised the growing influence of PR, spin and opinion polls in British politics, as well as parodying political figures of the time such as Harold Wilson and Enoch Powell. Cook admitted later that he had partly based his portrayal of the Rimmer character on David Frost, who provided funding for the film and took an executive producer credit. Plot The mysterious Michael Rimmer (Cook) appears at a small and ailing British advertising agency, where the employees assume he is working on a time and motion study. However, he quickly begins to assert a de facto authority over the firm's mostly ineffectual staff and soon acquires control of the business from the incompetent boss Ferret (Arthur Lowe). Rimmer then succeeds in establishing the newly invigorated firm as the country's leading polling agency, and begins to make regular TV appearances as a polling expert. He subsequently moves into politics, acting as an adviser to the leader of the Tory opposition, Tom Hutchinson (Ronald Fraser). After arranging for the Shadow Home Secretary Sir Eric Bentley (Ronald Culver) to give an inflammatory anti-immigration speech to give Hutchinson a pretext for firing him and to demonstrate the Conservatives' opposition to immigration without outlining specific policies, Rimmer becomes the MP for Bentley's now-vacant seat of Budleigh Moor (a reference to Cook's frequent collaborator, Dudley Moore). Along the way, he acquires a trophy wife (Vanessa Howard). Relying on a combination of charisma and deception—and murder—he then rapidly works his way up the political ladder to become prime minister (after throwing his predecessor off an oil rig). Rimmer then gains ultimate control by requiring the populace to engage in endless postal voting and televoting on trivial or complex matters. At last, exhausted, they acquiesce in one final vote which passes dictatorial power to him.