A Taste of Honey (film)

Last updated

A Taste of Honey
Tasteofhoney1961.jpg
UK release window card
Directed by Tony Richardson
Screenplay by Shelagh Delaney
Tony Richardson
Based on A Taste of Honey
1958 play
by Shelagh Delaney
Produced byTony Richardson
Starring Rita Tushingham
Dora Bryan
Robert Stephens
Murray Melvin
Paul Danquah
Cinematography Walter Lassally
Edited by Antony Gibbs
Music by John Addison
Production
company
Distributed by British Lion Films
Release date
  • 14 September 1961 (1961-09-14)
[1]
Running time
100 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
Budget£121,602 [2] [3] [4] [5]

A Taste of Honey is a 1961 British New Wave drama film directed by Tony Richardson and starring Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan, Robert Stephens and Murray Melvin. [6] It is an adaptation of the 1958 play of the same name by Shelagh Delaney. Delaney wrote the screenplay with Richardson, who had directed the original Broadway production of the play in 1960. As with the play, the film is an exemplar of a social realist genre of British media known as kitchen sink realism.

Contents

Plot

In Salford, 17-year-old Josephine (who goes by "Jo"), struggles through an outdoor game of netball in gym class at her all-girls school. When she gets home, she hears her self-centred mother, Helen, arguing with their landlady, who is upset about overdue rent and Helen's frequent gentlemen visitors. Once the landlady leaves, Jo and Helen sneak out the window and move across town on a bus, which is apparently not a unique occurrence for the pair. [7]

When Jo and Helen arrive at their shabby new flat, Jimmy, a young Black sailor, sees Jo struggling with her suitcases and comes to her aid. Later that evening, Helen brings her new boyfriend, Peter, home after a night in the pub, but Peter leaves after realizing that Helen is a mother. Helen and Jo go to sleep in the bed they share.

After being kept after class for mocking her teacher, Jo trips and scrapes her knee as she is walking home. She limps past the Manchester Ship Canal, where Jimmy happens to be disembarking the ship on which he works as a cook. He invites her aboard to attend to her knee. They begin a brief courtship, and Jimmy gives Jo an engagement ring that she wears on a ribbon around her neck.

Jo joins Helen and Peter on a weekend trip to Blackpool with friends. Peter gives Helen an ultimatum, saying she must choose between him and her daughter; Helen sends Jo home alone. Jimmy is waiting when Jo arrives in Salford, and they spend the night together. In the morning, Jo watches him board his ship and depart. Helen returns just long enough to pack before leaving to get married and go on a honeymoon, after which she intends to live in a suburban bungalow with Peter.

Left to fend for herself, Jo leaves school, gets a job in a shoe shop, and moves into a loft apartment in a former workshop. She meets Geoffrey Ingham, a gay textile design student, and invites him to live with her after learning he has been evicted due to his sexuality. [8]

Jo discovers she is pregnant by Jimmy. Geoff offers to marry her; she declines, though she does let him take care of her. After Jo has an outburst during which she says she does not want to be either a mother or a woman, Geoff tracks down Helen. Helen comes to visit Jo, and they almost immediately have a row. An inebriated Peter enters, takes back some money Helen offered Jo, and states that Jo will not be allowed to move into his house. Before they leave, Helen offers stay with Jo, but Jo refuses; once alone, Peter gives Helen the same ultimatum as in Blackpool, and she again chooses him.

On Guy Fawkes Night, with Jo's due date fast approaching, Helen reappears. Her marriage to Peter has fallen apart, and she is intent on moving in with Jo and pushing out Geoff, with whom she has a shouting match. Although Jo says she would prefer that Geoff stay, he packs his things and quietly leaves, stating that she will need someone with her who has gone through childbirth. Nervously, Jo tells Helen that her baby will be Black; disturbed by this revelation, Helen leaves to buy alcohol. Jo notices Geoff's belongings are gone and finds his goodbye note. She goes outside, but only sees some children with fireworks around a bonfire. From the shadows, Geoff watches Helen return from the off-licence, and then sneaks away unseen. One of the children gives Jo a sparkler, and she solemnly watches it burn out.

Cast

Future Member of Parliament Hazel Blears and her brother Stephen appear as two street urchins.

Production

The film was shot on location in Salford, Manchester, and Blackpool. [9] The scene where Geoffrey gives Jo a doll was filmed in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Stockport. [10] Interiors were filmed in Chelsea, London, with the main location used for Jo and Helen's flat being 74 Elm Park Gardens. [11] [12]

Release

A Taste of Honey opened on 14 September 1961 at the Leicester Square Theatre in London's West End. [13] [1]

The film was banned in several countries.[ where? ] Tushingham reflected in 2020 that "a lot of the reaction was 'People like that don't exist' – by which they meant homosexuals, single mothers and people in mixed-race relationships. But they did." [14]

Reception

Box office

The film made a profit of £29,064 for Bryanston Films. [15]

Critical reception

Peter John Dyer gave a generally positive review in The Monthly Film Bulletin :

A Taste of Honey arrives with an advance, theatre-made reputation exceeded only by that of Woodfall's two John Osborne adaptations. It is remarkable that so shapeless, slender and unpretentious a film manages almost completely to stand up to this reputation. But then in some ways it is a realisation rather than an adaptation of Shelagh Delaney's play, with the music-hall mannerisms of the stage production largely removed and the locale vividly filled in. The film has the advantage of some lived-in, non-studio settings by Ralph Brinton, and the script, though it misses a little of the verbal richness and precision of the original (as in Jo's persistent request for details of Geoffrey's amatory activities, here muffed), achieves a warm feeling for relationships. Murray Melvin's wistful homosexual, with his pinched, troubled face and nervous kindness, and Dora Bryan's restless, casually effusive Helen, her broad shapeless features occasionally clouded by bitter self-awareness, could hardly be bettered. Something of a cross between Joan Plowright and Harriet Andersson, Rita Tushingham's Jo lacks technical accomplishment, but makes up for it with a spirited North Country protest and grave, haunting eyes which express exactly that bleak independence, the sudden snatching after ephemeral happiness in the midst of drab hopelessness, which is at the core of the play. Tony Richardson's direction, though geared throughout to the right mood, has not quite the rhythm and poetry to carry it through. His Blackpool fairground sequences are obviously handled along lines familiar from his previous films; and there is still too much putting-on of style (crowds of singing or playing children) as opposed to the natural lyricism of the sailor's leavetaking in silhouetted long-shot on the bridge. Certain passages are unnecessarily abrupt, while others – possibly due to a number of self-conscious dissolves – seem either dragged-out on the one hand or inconsequential and irrelevant on the other. John Addison's score adds an element of gratuitous rhetoric. But these remain minor considerations in the light of the simple, fresh appeal of the whole. A Taste of Honey, tart and lively around the edges and bitter at the core, is Richardson's best film to date. [16]

A. H. Weiler of The New York Times gave the film a positive review, stating: "In being transported out of the theatre, this "Honey" has been enriched." [17]

James Powers wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that the film was "the best British drama since Room at the Top ", and contended that it "contains the only true portrait of homosexualism in the entire literature of modern books, plays and movies." [18]

In 2017, The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film five out of five stars, writing:

A ground-breaking movie of its time, this features the mousy Rita Tushingham in her screen debut as the unwanted teenage daughter of Dora Bryan, a hilariously vulgar Salford lass who is being courted by a flash and pimpish Robert Stephens. Our Rita is saved from her living hell by two social exiles – a black sailor, who makes her pregnant, and a homosexual who makes her happy until the poverty trap snaps shut around her. Set in dank bedsits amid the grimy smokestacks, polluted canals and the tacky prom at Blackpool, this movie – a romance of sorts, and a comedy – survives as a priceless barometer of England in 1961. [19]

Accolades

Delaney and Richardson won the 1961 Writers' Guild of Great Britain award for Best British Dramatic Screenplay. [20]

At the 1962 15th British Academy Film Awards, A Taste of Honey won in four categories: Best British Film, [21] Best British Screenplay (tied with The Day the Earth Caught Fire ), [22] Best British Actress (Dora Bryan), [23] and Most Promising Newcomer (Rita Tushingham). [24]

Tushingham and Murray Melvin won Best Actress and Best Actor, respectively, at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. [25] [26]

Richardson received a nomination at the 1962 15th Directors Guild of America Awards. [27]

Tushingham won a 1963 Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer [28] (tied with Patty Duke for The Miracle Worker and Sue Lyon for Lolita ).

In 1999, A Taste of Honey was ranked 56th on the British Film Institute's list of the top 100 British films of the century. [29]

Home media

The Criterion Collection released a restored 4K digital transfer of the film on Blu-ray and DVD on 23 August 2016. [30]

Related Research Articles

Cecil Antonio Richardson was an English theatre and film director, producer and screenwriter, whose career spanned five decades. He was identified with the "angry young men" group of British directors and playwrights during the 1950s, and was later a key figure in the British New Wave filmmaking movement.

<i>Ulees Gold</i> 1997 American film

Ulee's Gold is a 1997 American drama film written and directed by Victor Nuñez and starring Peter Fonda. Co-stars include Patricia Richardson, Christine Dunford, Tom Wood, Jessica Biel, J. Kenneth Campbell and Vanessa Zima. It was released by Orion Pictures, with Jonathan Demme receiving presenter credits for his role in the film's financing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita Tushingham</span> British actress (born 1942)

Rita Tushingham is a British actress. She is known for her starring roles in films including A Taste of Honey (1961), The Leather Boys (1964), The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Smashing Time (1967). For A Taste of Honey, she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, and Most Promising Newcomer at both the BAFTA Awards and Golden Globe Awards. Her other film appearances include An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), Under the Skin (1997), Being Julia (2004), and Last Night in Soho (2021).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dora Bryan</span> English actress (1923–2014)

Dora May Broadbent,, known as Dora Bryan, was a British actress of stage, film and television.

<i>A Taste of Honey</i> British 1958 play by Shelagh Delaney

A Taste of Honey is the first play by the British dramatist Shelagh Delaney, written when she was 19. It was adapted into an award-winning film of the same title in 1961.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lesley Sharp</span> English actress

Lesley Sharp is an English actress, She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her part in the film The Full Monty (1997), and for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress in 2002 for her role in Bob & Rose (2001).

<i>The Knack ...and How to Get It</i> 1965 British film by Richard Lester

The Knack …and How to Get It is a 1965 British comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring Rita Tushingham, Ray Brooks, Michael Crawford, and Donal Donnelly. The screenplay by Charles Wood is based on the 1962 play The Knack: A Comedy in Three Acts by Ann Jellicoe. The film is considered emblematic of the Swinging London cultural phenomenon. It was the first movie appearance of Jane Birkin and Charlotte Rampling.

<i>Smashing Time</i> 1967 British film by Desmond Davis

Smashing Time is a 1967 British satirical comedy film directed by Desmond Davis starring Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave. It is a satire on the 1960s media-influenced phenomenon of Swinging London. It was written by George Melly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murray Melvin</span> British actor (1932–2023)

Murray Melvin was an English actor. He was best known for his acting work with Joan Littlewood, Ken Russell and Stanley Kubrick. He was the author of two books: The Art of Theatre Workshop (2006) and The Theatre Royal, A History of the Building (2009).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Comer</span> British actor (1924–1984)

John Comer was a British comic actor. He was best known for his roles in Coronation Street as Mr Birtles, then as a taxi driver, and later as Wilf Jones, in Emmerdale Farm as Ernie Shuttleworth, Les Brandon in I Didn't Know You Cared, and cafe owner Sid in Last of the Summer Wine.

<i>Girl with Green Eyes</i> 1964 British film by Desmond Davis

Girl with Green Eyes is a 1964 British romantic drama film directed by Desmond Davis and starring Peter Finch, Rita Tushingham, Lynn Redgrave and Julian Glover. Adapted by Edna O'Brien from her novel The Lonely Girl, the film tells the story of a young, naive country girl's romance with a sophisticated older man. As the film is in black and white, the green eyes are never seen.

<i>The Miracle Worker</i> (1962 film) Film by Arthur Penn

The Miracle Worker is a 1962 American biographical film about Anne Sullivan, blind tutor to Helen Keller, directed by Arthur Penn. The screenplay by William Gibson is based on his 1959 play of the same title, which originated as a 1957 broadcast of the television anthology series Playhouse 90. Gibson's secondary source material was The Story of My Life, the 1903 autobiography of Helen Keller.

<i>Straight On till Morning</i> (film) 1972 British film by Peter Collinson

Straight On till Morning is a 1972 British thriller film directed by Peter Collinson and starring Rita Tushingham, Shane Briant, James Bolam, Katya Wyeth and John Clive. It was made by Hammer Film Productions. The screenplay concerns a reserved young woman who finds herself attracted to a handsome stranger, unaware of his psychotic tendencies.

The 15th British Academy Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1962, honoured the best films of 1961.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1962 Cannes Film Festival</span>

The 15th Cannes Film Festival was held from 7 to 23 May 1962. The Palme d'Or went to the O Pagador de Promessas by Anselmo Duarte. The festival opened with Les Amants de Teruel, directed by Raymond Rouleau.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shelagh Delaney</span> English dramatist and screenwriter (1938–2011)

Shelagh Delaney FRSL was an English dramatist and screenwriter. Her debut work, A Taste of Honey (1958), has been described by Michael Patterson as "probably the most performed play by a post-war British woman playwright".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Danquah</span> British actor (1925–2015)

Paul Danquah, born Joseph Paul Walcott, was a British film actor, known particularly for his role in the film A Taste of Honey (1961), adapted from the 1958 play of the same name written by Shelagh Delaney. He later became a barrister and a bank consultant. His father was the Ghanaian statesman J. B. Danquah.

<i>The Lion in Love</i> (play)

The Lion In Love is a 1960 play by the British dramatist Shelagh Delaney. It was her second written play. It was premiered at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry on 5 September 1960 With a cast from the English Stage Company, the play commenced a run at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 29 December 1960. The work has been described as a "follow up" to Delaney's 1958 play A Taste of Honey but did not achieve that earlier play's success.

Rowan Robinson is an English actress. She is known for her roles in the film A Haunting in Venice (2023) and the ITV thriller Passenger (2024).

References

  1. 1 2 "Gala World Premiere (advertisement)". Evening Standard . 12 September 1961. p. 12.
  2. ↑ Alexander Walker, Hollywood, England, Stein and Day, 1974, p. 124.
  3. ↑ Petrie, Duncan James (2017). "Bryanston Films : An Experiment in Cooperative Independent Production and Distribution" (PDF). Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television: 7. ISSN   1465-3451.
  4. ↑ Chapman, L. (2021). “They wanted a bigger, more ambitious film”: Film Finances and the American “Runaways” That Ran Away. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 18(2), 176–197. https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2021.0565
  5. ↑ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 360 gives figure as £120,349
  6. ↑ "A Taste of Honey". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
  7. ↑ "A Taste of Honey (1962) - Full Synopsis" . Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  8. ↑ "Breaking Barriers: Murray Melvin on A Taste of Honey" . Retrieved 3 February 2017.[ permanent dead link ]
  9. ↑ Murphy, Robert (1992). Sixties British CInema. London: British Film Institute. p. 21. ISBN   0851703240.
  10. ↑ "A Taste Of Honey". 17 April 2020. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  11. ↑ Williams, Melanie (2023). A Taste of Honey. London: British Film Institute. p. 32. ISBN   9781839021558.
  12. ↑ "Filming Locations for a Taste of Honey (1961), in Manchester, Lancashire and London".
  13. ↑ "Tony Richardson, John Osborne And Rita Tushingham". 13 October 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  14. ↑ Stuart Jeffries (28 January 2020). "Rita Tushingham on life after A Taste of Honey: 'It was a shock when the 60s ended'". The Guardian.
  15. ↑ Petrie p 9
  16. ↑ "A Taste of Honey". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 28 (324): 140. 1 January 1961. ProQuest   1305829519 – via ProQuest.
  17. ↑ Weiler, A. H. (1 May 1962). "Screen: 'A Taste of Honey' Arrives:British Drama Stars Rita Tushingham". The New York Times . Retrieved 11 August 2019.
  18. ↑ Powers, James (28 June 1962). "Richardson Production A Touching Drama". The Hollywood Reporter . 170 (47): 3. ProQuest   2339759850 – via ProQuest.
  19. ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 911. ISBN   9780992936440.
  20. ↑ "Writers' Guild Awards 1961". Writers' Guild of Great Britain. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  21. ↑ "BAFTA Awards British Film in 1962". awards.bafta.org. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
  22. ↑ "BAFTA Awards British Screenplay in 1962". awards.bafta.org. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
  23. ↑ "BAFTA Awards British Actress in 1962". awards.bafta.org. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
  24. ↑ "BAFTA Awards Most Promising Newcomer To Leading Film Roles 1962". awards.bafta.org. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
  25. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: A Taste of Honey". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 25 February 2009.
  26. ↑ Hodgkinson, Will (15 June 2001). "Stark raving mod". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  27. ↑ "DGA Awards Search". Directors Guild of America. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  28. ↑ "Taste of Honey, A". Golden Globe Awards. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  29. ↑ "BBC News | Entertainment | Best 100 British films - full list". news.bbc.co.uk.
  30. ↑ "A Taste of Honey". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
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.