London: N.p. [ABPC], 1960

Mimeographed screenplay, pp. 139, bound in salmon pink card wrappers and secured with three split pins to left edge. Paper title label to top right of front panel. Variegated pages (denoting rewrites). Wrappers a little faded, corners lightly bumped, but a very well preserved copy.

SECOND REVISED VERSION OF THE REBEL (1961), HERE STILL TITLED ONE MAN'S MEAT, BUT WITH THAT TITLE DELETED AND REPLACED ON TITLE PAGE, AND WITH FINAL TITLE INKED TO TITLE LABEL ON FRONT WRAPPER. Marked 'Copy No. 5' to title label.

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's Hancock's Half Hour can lay strong claim to marking the invention of the sitcom, and ran on BBC Radio for six series over five years between 1954 and 1959, before crossing over to television where it ran until 1961. That year Galton, Simpson and Tony Hancock made The Rebel (US title: Call Me Genius), designed to launch Hancock on a film career. Now rehabilitated and revered by many, on the release the film flopped. Undeterred, Galton and Simpson wrote three further films for Hancock; he turned down all three, and parted company with the best writers he ever had. For Hancock it was the beginning of a steep decline, ending with his suicide in Australia in 1968. But for Galton and Simpson a second, even more far-reaching success beckoned: Steptoe and Son was a huge international hit (remade in the US as Sandford and Son), securing their reputation on both sides of the Atlantic in a way Hancock never managed.

The first draft screenplay of The Rebel is dated 4 July 1958, was written from a typed treatment, and bears the working title One Man's Meat. This title was retained for the first revised version of 1 December 1959. (Copies of all these documents are present in the Galton and Simpson archive.) This, the second revised version, is dated 23 May 1960 on both the title page and the title label, and the blue rewrite pages are dated 1 June. The working title has been deleted on the title page and replaced with 'THE REBEL' in pencil, and the title label to the front wrapper has 'AKA "THE REBEL"' added in ink. The text is otherwise unmarked. This version of the script became the shooting script: The Rebel was released in the UK on 2 March 1961.

The first film written by Galton and Simpson, the first leading film role for Tony Hancock -- and the last collaboration between the creators of Hancock's Half Hour and their regular leading man.

An acknowledged classic of British cinema, and truly rare -- we can find no record of any other copy ever having been offered for sale.