Derek and Clive Get the Horn

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Derek and Clive Get the Horn
DVD cover for Derek and Clive Get the Horn
Directed by	Russell Mulcahy
Produced by	Dudley Moore
Written by	Peter Cook Dudley Moore
Starring	Peter Cook Dudley Moore Richard Branson Nicola Austin
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	1979
Running time	89 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Derek and Clive Get The Horn is a 1979 documentary that chronicles the recording of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's 1978 comedy album Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam, their third and final outing featuring their controversial alter-egos Derek and Clive, two foul-mouthed lavatory attendants who banter at length about their surreal day-to-day existences. The footage was shot in early September 1978.

Directed by Russell Mulcahy, who would later direct Highlander, the film was intended for cinematic release, but in October 1980 the British Board of Film Classification rejected it outright on the grounds of its sustained and excessive use of bad language and blasphemy. Cook instead chose to release the film straight to video, a format that was at the time unregulated, but this plan also ran into trouble when several hundred copies were impounded by the notorious "God's copper" James Anderton of the Greater Manchester Police, sending the small company behind the release spiralling into bankruptcy. Derek and Clive Get The Horn was finally granted an 18 certificate in 1993 and was released as a sell-through video by PolyGram. Although it is far from technically stunning or visually exciting, it remains a valuable document displaying Cook's surreal, often perverse comic mind firing on all cylinders. It's also a fascinating inside view of the slow disintegration of the Cook-Moore partnership, which ended abruptly during filming when Dudley Moore walked out after sustaining a verbal barrage from Cook.