The Rebel

The first and best of two attempts to turn Hancock into a screen star, scripted by his regular TV writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, this is an only partially successful film. The first half, with Hancock turning from a bowler hat and the City to an artist's beret and the Left Bank - and ordering 'snails, egg and chips' as a compromise - is fine. But Day labours over Hancock's unexpected success as the leader of the Infantile school of painting, and breaks the golden rule of Hancock's comic art by allowing him an unqualified victory over life's circumstances.