Life for Ruth

Last updated

Life for Ruth
"Life for Ruth" (1962).jpg
Theatrical poster
Directed by Basil Dearden
Written by Janet Green
James McCormick
Produced by Michael Relph
Starring Michael Craig
Patrick McGoohan
Janet Munro
Cinematography Otto Heller
Edited by John D. Guthridge
Music by William Alwyn
Production
company
Distributed by Rank Film Distributors
Release dates
  • 30 August 1962 (1962-08-30)(World Premiere, London)
  • 1966 (1966)(US)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£126,800 [1]
Box office£53,788 (by 1971) [1]

Life for Ruth (U.S. title: Walk in the Shadow) is a 1962 British drama film produced by Michael Relph directed by Basil Dearden and starring Michael Craig, Patrick McGoohan and Janet Munro. [2]

Contents

Plot

John Harris finds himself ostracized and placed on trial for allowing his daughter Ruth to die. His religious beliefs forbade him to give consent for a blood transfusion that would have saved her life. Doctor Brown is determined to seek justice for what he sees as the needless death of a young girl.

Cast

Production

The film was based on an original script by the husband and wife team of Janet Green and John McCormick, who had written Sapphire and Victim for Dearden and Relph. They wrote it in 1961 under the title God the Father then A Matter of Conscience. [3]

Michael Craig had worked with Dearden and Relph on Sapphire. He says he was "surprised to be offered the film - playing a North country working class chap seemed against type - but I was delighted to do it." [4]

Filming took place in Sunderland and Seaham Harbour Co Durham,

Reception

The film had its World Premiere on 30 August 1962 at the Leicester Square Theatre in London's West End. [5]

Box Office

The film was a failure at the box office, contributing to the collapse of Allied Film Makers. [1]

Critical

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The bleak Durham locations are photographed with a stylish sense of dramatic effect. But the weakness is that of most British problem pictures. Despite the explosive nature of the material and its sideshoots (such as, whether denying a man his religious right to "sacrifice" his child smacks of persecution) the film is completely uncommitted. Meticulously it gives free speech to every shade of opinion on the subject, while taking sides with none ...The film will offend no one, with the possible exception of street-corner sensation-mongers. Emotionally, however, the theme cannot really fail to be moving, and the torment of husband and wife is well expressed by Michael Craig and Janet Munro, though others in the cast wear their working-class air less convincingly." [6]

The New York Times wrote of the film, "in avoiding blatant bias, mawkish sentimentality and theatrical flamboyance, it makes a statement that is dramatic, powerful and provocative." [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Victim</i> (1961 film) 1961 British film by Basil Dearden

Victim is a 1961 British neo-noir suspense film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Dirk Bogarde and Sylvia Syms. The first British film to explicitly name homosexuality and deal with it sympathetically, it premiered in the UK on 31 August 1961 and in the US the following February.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick McGoohan</span> American and Irish actor, writer, director and producer (1928–2009)

Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an Irish American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer of film, television, and theatre. Born in New York City to Irish parents, he was raised in Ireland and England, began his career in England during the 1950s and became well known for the titular role, secret agent John Drake in the ITC espionage programme Danger Man (1960–1968). He then produced and created The Prisoner (1967–1968), a surrealistic television series in which he featured as Number Six, an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village.

<i>The Goose Steps Out</i> 1942 British film

The Goose Steps Out is a British film released in 1942, starring Will Hay, who also co-directed with Basil Dearden. It is a comedy of mistaken identity, with Hay acting as a German spy and also an Englishman who is his double. It was the film debut of Peter Ustinov.

<i>Dead of Night</i> 1945 British film

Dead of Night is a 1945 black and white British anthology supernatural horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Sally Ann Howes and Michael Redgrave. The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.

<i>All Night Long</i> (1962 film) 1962 British film by Basil Dearden

All Night Long is a 1962 British neo noir drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Patrick McGoohan, Keith Michell, Betsy Blair, Paul Harris, Marti Stevens, and Richard Attenborough. The story by Nel King and Paul Jarrico is an updated version of William Shakespeare's Othello, set in the London jazz scene of the 1960s. The action takes place in a single evening, during an anniversary party. The black-and-white film features performances by several prominent British jazz musicians—among them John Dankworth and Tubby Hayes—as well as the Americans Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus, who were in the UK in 1961 when filming took place and were recruited to participate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basil Dearden</span> English film director (1911–1971)

Basil Dearden was an English film director.

<i>Sapphire</i> (film) 1959 film directed by Basil Dearden

Sapphire is a 1959 British crime drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Nigel Patrick, Yvonne Mitchell, Michael Craig, and Paul Massie. A progressive film for its time, it focuses on racism in London toward immigrants from the West Indies, and explores the "underlying insecurities and fears of ordinary people" about those of another race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Relph</span> British film maker (1915–2004)

Michael Leighton George Relph was an English film producer, art director, screenwriter and film director. He was the son of actor George Relph.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet Munro</span> British actress (1934–1972)

Janet Munro was a British actress. She won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the film Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and received a BAFTA Film Award nomination for her performance in the film Life for Ruth (1962).

<i>Woman of Straw</i> 1964 British crime thriller by Basil Dearden

Woman of Straw is a 1964 British crime thriller directed by Basil Dearden and starring Gina Lollobrigida and Sean Connery. It was written by Robert Muller and Stanley Mann, adapted from the 1954 novel La Femme de paille by Catherine Arley.

<i>The Man Who Haunted Himself</i> 1970 British film by Basil Dearden

The Man Who Haunted Himself is a 1970 British psychological thriller film written and directed by Basil Dearden and starring Roger Moore. It is based on the 1957 novel The Strange Case of Mr Pelham by Anthony Armstrong, and is a variation on the Jekyll and Hyde story.

<i>Rockets Galore!</i> 1958 British film by Michael Relph

Rockets Galore! is a 1957 British comedy film directed by Michael Relph and starring Jeannie Carson, Donald Sinden and Roland Culver. The sequel to Whisky Galore!, it was much less successful than its predecessor.

<i>Spare a Copper</i> 1940 film by John Paddy Carstairs

Spare a Copper is a 1940 British black-and-white musical comedy war film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring George Formby, Dorothy Hyson and Bernard Lee. It was produced by Associated Talking Pictures. It is also known as Call a Cop. The film features the songs, "I'm the Ukulele Man", "On the Beat", "I Wish I Was Back on the Farm" and "I'm Shy". Beryl Reid makes her film debut in an uncredited role, while Ronald Shiner appears similarly uncredited, in the role of the Piano Mover and Tuner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Baird (actor)</span> British actor (1931–2005)

Harry Baird was a Guyanese-born British actor who came to prominence in the 1960s, appearing in more than 36 films throughout his career. He is best remembered as the bus driver in the final scene of The Italian Job.

<i>Out of the Clouds</i> 1955 British film by Basil Dearden

Out of the Clouds is a 1955 British drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Anthony Steel, Robert Beatty and James Robertson Justice. It was loosely based on the novel The Springboard by John Fores and was adapted by Rex Reinits, with a screenplay by Michael Relph and John Eldridge.

<i>A Place to Go</i> 1963 British film by Basil Dearden

A Place to Go is a 1963 British crime drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Bernard Lee, Rita Tushingham and Michael Sarne. It was based on the 1961 novel Bethnal Green by Michael Fisher.

<i>The Mind Benders</i> (1963 film) 1963 British film by Basil Dearden

The Mind Benders is a 1963 British thriller film produced by Michael Relph, directed by Basil Dearden and starring Dirk Bogarde, Mary Ure, John Clements, Michael Bryant and Wendy Craig. Screenwriter James Kennaway turned his screenplay into his 1963 novel of the same name.

<i>I Believe in You</i> (film) 1952 British film by Michael Relph and Basil Dearden

I Believe in You is a 1952 British drama film directed by Michael Relph and Basil Dearden, starring Celia Johnson and Cecil Parker and is based on the book Court Circular by Sewell Stokes. Inspired by the recently successful The Blue Lamp (1950), Relph and Dearden used a semi-documentary approach in telling the story of the lives of probation officers and their charges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allied Film Makers</span>

Allied Film Makers was a shortlived British production company, formed in November 1959, which produced several films. Producer Sydney Box came up with the idea of forming a consortium of film-makers that would distribute the films they made. Box had to drop out of the company owing to illness, but four partnerships agreed to join: Basil Dearden and Michael Relph; Jack Hawkins; Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes; and Hawkins's brother. Guy Green later joined the Forbes-Attenborough group. Each group put up £5,000 and the Rank Organisation guaranteed distribution.

Janet Green (1908–1993) was a British screenwriter and playwright best known for the scripts for the BAFTA nominated films Sapphire and Victim, and for the play Murder Mistaken.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Alexander Walker, Hollywood, England, Stein and Day, 1974 p248
  2. "Life for Ruth". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 6 August 2024.
  3. Nelmes, Jill; Selbo, Jule (2015). Women Screenwriters: An International Guide. Springer.
  4. Craig, Michael (2005). The Smallest Giant: An Actor's Life. Allen and Unwin. p. 104.
  5. The Times online archive 30/8/1962 page 2
  6. "Life for Ruth". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 29 (336): 114. 1 January 1962 via ProQuest.
  7. A.H. Weiler (12 September 1966). "Movie Review - Life For Ruth - Screen: Faith and Law:'Walk in the Shadow' Is Disturbingly Real". The New York Times . Retrieved 13 March 2014.