A Kind of Loving (film)

Last updated

A Kind of Loving
A Kind of Loving (1962) film poster.jpg
Directed by John Schlesinger
Written by Keith Waterhouse
Willis Hall
Based on A Kind of Loving
by Stan Barstow
Produced by Joseph Janni
Starring Alan Bates
June Ritchie
Thora Hird
Cinematography Denys Coop
Edited byRoger Cherrill
Music by Ron Grainer
Production
companies
Vic Films Productions
Waterhall Productions
Distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated
Release dates
12 April 1962 (UK)
1 October 1962 (U.S.)
Running time
112 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£155,590 [1] [2] [3] or $750,000 [4]
Box office£450,000 (UK) [2]

A Kind of Loving is a 1962 British kitchen sink [5] drama film directed by John Schlesinger, starring Alan Bates and June Ritchie. [6] It is based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Stan Barstow which was later adapted into the 1982 television series A Kind of Loving. [7] The film tells the story of two lovers in early 1960s Lancashire. It belongs to the British New Wave movement.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Plot

Victor 'Vic' Brown is a draughtsman in a Manchester factory who sleeps with typist Ingrid Rothwell who also works there. She falls for him but he is less enamoured of her. When he learns he has made her pregnant Vic proposes marriage and the couple move in with Ingrid's protective, domineering mother who disapproves of the match. Ingrid has a miscarriage, Vic has regrets and comes home drunk. The couple then consider the possibility of making do with "a kind of loving".

Cast

Production

The film was shot at Shepperton Studios, [6] and on location in the northwest of England in Bolton, Blackburn, Manchester, Preston, Radcliffe, Salford and St Anne's-on-Sea. [8] Photography was by Denys Coop, and music by Ron Grainer. [6]

Reception

Box office

It was the sixth most popular film at the British box office in 1962. [9] According to Kinematograph Weekly the film was considered a "money maker" at the British box office in 1962. [10]

Critical reception

Leslie Halliwell opined: "Blunt melodrama with strong kinship to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning [1960], strikingly directed and photographed amid urban grime and suburban conformity." [11]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "Unlike the majority of other 'grim up North' dramas that found critical favour during the social realist or kitchen sink phase of British film-making, John Schlesinger's debut feature is about making the most of life rather than carping on about the colour of the grass on the other side of the fence. Crisply adapted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, the film is like a scrapbook of typical human experience, with Schlesinger's eye for detail and his persuasive storytelling style creating characters who could have lived next door to you. Alan Bates and June Ritchie are excellent, but Thora Hird is exceptional." [12]

Michael Brooke wrote in Sight and Sound : [13]

John Schlesinger's feature debut came comparatively late in the angry-young-men/kitchen-sink cycle, but it wears its 54 years rather better than many of its contemporaries, not least because some of its social concerns are just as pervasive today — in particular the impossibility of obtaining decent housing even when both halves of a married couple are in steady employment. The couple in question are Vic Brown (Alan Bates) and Ingrid Rothwell (June Ritchie), not an ideal match on any level other than the basest, but forced to marry after she shyly confesses, in what by 1962 standards was extreme sexual explicitness, that "Something that should have happened hasn't: it's been 15 days." When they are forced — by penury and Ingrid's unrealistic domestic ambitions — to move into her mother's fussily maintained semi, it's clear from the moment that Thora Hird first wrinkles her nose at her new son-in-law that things aren't going to go well. But if the narrative runs along decidedly familiar lines, former (and then very recent) documentarist Schlesinger gives the film immense lasting value in its pitch-perfect presentation of the fine detail of northern working-class life — the football, the pubs, the brass-band concerts, the 'mucky books', the works dos with their fake bonhomie, and above all the finely calibrated snobbery. Despite having a skilled job himself, Vic is happy to chat to the window cleaner as an equal, but the latter is then dressed down by Mrs Rothwell, who firmly believes that certain people should know their place. Hird is magnificent in a part that could easily have slipped into crude caricature, and Bates is even better. As with his New Wave predecessors Jimmy Porter and Arthur Seaton, Vic's own character flaws could hardly be more obvious, yet his lonely nocturnal sojourn in the railway station is so laceratingly soul-baring that it would melt even the flintiest heart.

Awards

The film won the Golden Bear award at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival in 1962. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thora Hird</span> English actress, comedian, and writer (1911–2003)

Dame Thora Hird was an English actress and comedian, presenter and writer. In a career spanning over 70 years, she appeared in more than 100 films, as well as many television roles, becoming a household name and a British institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Bates</span> English actor (1934–2003)

Sir Alan Arthur Bates was an English actor who came to prominence in the 1960s, when he appeared in films ranging from the popular children's story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving.

The British New Wave is a style of films released in Great Britain between 1959 and 1963. The label is a translation of Nouvelle Vague, the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others.

<i>Woman in a Dressing Gown</i> 1957 British film

Woman in a Dressing Gown is a 1957 British drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms, and Carole Lesley.

<i>Bitter Harvest</i> (1963 film) 1963 film by Peter Graham Scott

Bitter Harvest is a 1963 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Peter Graham Scott and starring Janet Munro and John Stride.

<i>A Kind of Loving</i> (novel)

A Kind of Loving is a novel by the English novelist Stan Barstow. It has also been translated into a film of the same name, a television series, a radio play and a stage play.

<i>Lost</i> (1956 film) 1956 British film directed by Guy Green

Lost is a 1956 British thriller film directed by Guy Green and starring David Farrar, David Knight and Julia Arnall. It is set in 1950s London, and revolves around the apparent kidnapping of a young couple's baby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">June Ritchie</span> British actress

June Ritchie is a British actress.

<i>Further Up the Creek</i> 1958 film by Val Guest

Further Up the Creek is a 1958 British comedy film written and directed by Val Guest and starring David Tomlinson, Frankie Howerd, Shirley Eaton, Thora Hird, Desmond Llewelyn and Lionel Jeffries. It served as a follow-up to Up the Creek, with Peter Sellers not reprising his role because it clashed with the filming of The Mouse That Roared. Frankie Howerd replaced him.

<i>These Dangerous Years</i> 1957 British film

These Dangerous Years is a 1957 British drama musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring George Baker, Frankie Vaughan, Carole Lesley, Thora Hird, Kenneth Cope, David Lodge and John Le Mesurier.

<i>Sailor Beware!</i> (1956 film) 1956 British film by Gordon Parry

Sailor Beware! is a 1956 British comedy film directed by Gordon Parry and starring Peggy Mount, Shirley Eaton and Ronald Lewis. It was released in the United States by Distributors Corporation of America in 1957 as Panic in the Parlor.

<i>A Cry from the Streets</i> 1958 film

A Cry from the Streets is a 1958 British drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert, starring Max Bygraves and Barbara Murray.

<i>For Better, for Worse</i> (1954 film) 1954 British film by J. Lee Thompson

For Better, for Worse is a 1954 British comedy film in Eastmancolor directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Dirk Bogarde, Susan Stephen and Cecil Parker. It was based on Arthur Watkyn's play of the same title.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">12th Berlin International Film Festival</span> Film festival

The 12th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 22 June – 3 July 1962. The Golden Bear was awarded to the British film A Kind of Loving directed by John Schlesinger.

<i>The Weaker Sex</i> (1948 film) 1948 film

The Weaker Sex is a 1948 British drama film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Ursula Jeans, Cecil Parker and Joan Hopkins.

<i>Just My Luck</i> (1957 film) 1957 British film

Just My Luck is a 1957 British sports comedy film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Norman Wisdom, Margaret Rutherford, Jill Dixon and Leslie Phillips.

<i>Tread Softly Stranger</i> 1958 British film

Tread Softly Stranger is a 1958 British crime drama directed by Gordon Parry and starring Diana Dors, George Baker and Terence Morgan. The film was shot in black-and-white in film noir style, and its setting in an industrial town in northern England mirrors the kitchen sink realism movement coming into vogue in English drama and film at the time. The screenplay was adapted from the stage play Blind Alley (1953) by Jack Popplewell.

<i>The Love Match</i> 1955 British film

The Love Match is a 1955 British black and white comedy film directed by David Paltenghi and starring Arthur Askey, Glenn Melvyn, Thora Hird and Shirley Eaton. A football-mad railway engine driver and his fireman are desperate to get back in time to see a match. It was based on the 1953 play by Glenn Melvyn, one of the stars of the film. A TV spin-off series Love and Kisses, appeared later in 1955.

<i>Rattle of a Simple Man</i> 1964 British film by Muriel Box

Rattle of a Simple Man is a 1964 British comedy-drama film directed by Muriel Box and starring Diane Cilento, Harry H. Corbett and Michael Medwin, based on the 1963 play by Charles Dyer. A naive man who becomes involved with a prostitute.

<i>A Boy, a Girl and a Bike</i> 1949 British film

A Boy, a Girl and a Bike is a 1949 British romantic comedy film directed by Ralph Smart and starring John McCallum, Honor Blackman and Patrick Holt. The film's art direction was by George Provis. The film concerns the romantic escapades and adventures of a Yorkshire cycling club.

References

  1. ↑ Sarah Street (2014) Film Finances and the British New Wave, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 34:1, 23-42 p26, DOI: 10.1080/01439685.2014.879000
  2. 1 2 Alexander Walker, Hollywood, England, Stein and Day, 1974 p120
  3. ↑ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 360 gives the amount as £145,820
  4. ↑ "Nat Cohen's Many Deal with Yanks". Variety. 31 January 1962. p. 4.
  5. ↑ Murphy, Robert (1992). Sixties British Cinema. London: BFI Publishing. p. 25. ISBN   0-85170-309-7.
  6. 1 2 3 "A Kind of Loving". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
  7. ↑ Vahimagi, Tise (1996). British Television: An Illustrated Guide (Compiled for the BFI) (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 277. ISBN   0198159269.
  8. ↑ Keeling, Neal (17 June 2016). "Iconic film A Kind of Loving restored for Manchester 'premiere'". Manchester Evening News .
  9. ↑ "Money-Making Films Of 1962." Times [London, England] 4 Jan. 1963: 4. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 11 July 2012.
  10. ↑ Billings, Josh (13 December 1962). "Three British Films Head the General Releases". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 7. Retrieved 7 March 2023.
  11. ↑ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 558. ISBN   0-586-08894-6.
  12. ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 507. ISBN   9780992936440.
  13. ↑ Brooke, Michael (September 2016). "A Kind of Loving". Sight and Sound . 26 (9): 99 – via ProQuest.
  14. ↑ "Berlinale: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.