Leo The Last

Leo the Last is a 1970 film directed by John Boorman, based on the play The Prince by George Tabori, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Billie Whitelaw. The ennui afflicted heir to a deposed European throne returns to his father’s house in West London to find that the neighborhood has become a slum. An ornithologist ill at ease with others, he finds his spy-glass wandering from birds to observe his neighbors. Strictly an observer at first, he incr... more

Leo the Last is a 1970 film directed by John Boorman, based on the play The Prince by George Tabori, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Billie Whitelaw. The ennui afflicted heir to a deposed European throne returns to his father’s house in West London to find that the neighborhood has become a slum. An ornithologist ill at ease with others, he finds his spy-glass wandering from birds to observe his neighbors. Strictly an observer at first, he increasingly becomes agitated as their lives are blighted by violence, poverty, and injustice. In particular he is moved by the plight of the pubescent Salambo Mardi and her family, beset by the rapist shop-keep Kowalski and the pimp Roscoe. Gradually he is stirred from his emotional detachment to try to assist her, a development that confuses, alarms, and angers his parasitic entourage; Margaret, his social climbing fiancé, Max, the shady family lawyer (who for reasons never directly explained is desperate for Leo to marry Margaret), David, his... less