Lindsay Gordon Anderson was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for his 1968 film if...., which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival in 1969 and marked Malcolm McDowell's cinematic debut. He is also notable, though not a professional actor, for playing a minor role in the Academy Award-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. McDowell produced a 2007 documentary about his experiences with Anderson, Never Apologize.
This Sporting Life is a 1963 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. Based on the 1960 novel of the same name by David Storey, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award, it recounts the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield, a mining city in Yorkshire, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life. Storey, a former professional rugby league footballer, also wrote the screenplay.
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor, novelist, and playwright. Beginning his career in theatre, Shaw joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre after the Second World War and appeared in productions of Macbeth, Henry VIII, Cymbeline, and other Shakespeare plays. With the Old Vic company (1951–52), he continued primarily in Shakespearean roles. In 1959 he starred in a West End production of The Long and the Short and the Tall.
Rachel Roberts was a Welsh actress. She is best remembered for her screen performances as the older mistress of the central male character in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and This Sporting Life (1963). For both films, she won the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress. She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for This Sporting Life. Her other notable film appearances included Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Yanks (1979).
if.... is a 1968 British drama film produced and directed by Lindsay Anderson, and starring Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis, and also starring Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, David Wood, and Robert Swann. A satire of English public school life, the film follows a group of pupils who stage a savage insurrection at a boys' boarding school. The film was the subject of controversy at the time of its release, receiving an X certificate for its depictions of violence.
Thomas Patrick McKenna was an Irish actor, born in Mullagh, County Cavan. He had an extensive stage and screen career.
Willis Edward Hall was an English playwright and radio, television and film writer who drew on his working-class roots in Leeds for much of his writing. Willis formed an extremely prolific partnership with his life-long friend Keith Waterhouse producing over 250 works. He wrote plays such as Billy Liar, The Long and the Short and the Tall, and Celebration; the screenplays for Whistle Down the Wind, A Kind of Loving and Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain; and television programmes including Budgie, Worzel Gummidge and Minder. His passion for musical theatre led to a string of hits, including Wind in the Willows, The Card, and George Stiles' and Anthony Drewe's Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure.
One-Armed Swordsman is a 1967 Hong Kong wuxia film produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio. Directed by Chang Cheh, it was the first of the new style of wuxia films emphasizing male anti-heroes, violent swordplay and heavy bloodletting. It was the first Hong Kong film to make HK$1 million at the local box office, propelling its star Jimmy Wang to super stardom.
Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after the Greek mythological figure. It premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on 16 October 1913 and was first presented in English on stage to the public in 1913. Its English-language premiere took place at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End in April 1914 and starred Herbert Beerbohm Tree as phonetics professor Henry Higgins and Mrs Patrick Campbell as Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle.
David Malcolm Storey was an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a professional rugby league player. He won the Booker Prize in 1976 for his novel Saville. He also won the MacMillan Fiction Award for This Sporting Life in 1960.
From 1973 to 1975, using approximately 500 movie theaters across the US, The American Film Theatre presented two seasons of film adaptations of well-known plays. Each film was shown only four times at each theatre. By design, these were not films of stage productions — they were plays "translated to the film medium, but with complete faithfulness to the original play script." Filmgoers generally subscribed to an entire season of films, as they might if they purchased a season's tickets for a conventional stage theater. About 500,000 subscriptions were sold for the first season of eight plays using direct mail and newspaper advertising. Ely Landau was the producer for the series.
David Chiang Tai-wai is a Hong Kong actor, director and producer. A well-known martial arts actor formerly from Shaw Brothers Studio in the 1970s, he has appeared in over 130 films and 30 television series.
Home is a play by David Storey. It is set in a mental asylum, although this fact is only revealed gradually as the story progresses. The five characters include seemingly benign Harry, highly opinionated Jack, cynical Marjorie, and flirtatious Kathleen. As they interact we come to realize their delusions and pretensions are similar to those of people living in a supposedly normal society.
Frank Grimes is an Irish stage and screen actor.
In Celebration is a 1975 British drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. It is based in the 1969 stage production of the same name by David Storey which was also directed by Anderson. The movie was produced and released as part of the American Film Theatre, which adapted theatrical works for a subscription-driven cinema series. It was meant to be shown theatrically with tickets sold in advance.
Constance Chapman was an English character actor working in theatre and television. She also made occasional film appearances.
Gabrielle Daye was an English stage, film and television actress, notable for her TV role as Mrs. Pring on Bless Me, Father. Other television appearances include Coronation Street, The War of Darkie Pilbeam (1968), Persuasion (1971), Survivors, Dear Enemy (1981), Juliet Bravo, Ever Decreasing Circles, Bleak House (1985) and A Very British Coup (1988). She also appeared in the feature films 10 Rillington Place (1971), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), Don't Just Lie There, Say Something! (1974), Cry Wolf (1980) and No Surrender (1985).
One Brief Summer is a 1970 British drama film directed by John Mackenzie. It stars Felicity Gibson and Clifford Evans. It was made at Twickenham Studios.
This Sporting Life is a 1960 novel by the English writer David Storey. It is set in Northern England and follows a man who tries to make it as a professional rugby league footballer. It was the debut novel of Storey, himself a former player for Leeds.
Sally Watts is a British film, television and stage actress whose career has spanned four decades and who is perhaps best remembered for playing Barbara in the sitcom Billy Liar (1973–74).
