The Angry Silence

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The Angry Silence
The Angry Silence FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by Guy Green
Screenplay by Bryan Forbes
Story by Richard Gregson
Michael Craig
Produced by Richard Attenborough
Bryan Forbes
Jack Rix
StarringRichard Attenborough
Pier Angeli
Michael Craig
Bernard Lee
Cinematography Arthur Ibbetson
Edited by Anthony Harvey
Music by Malcolm Arnold
Production
company
Beaver Films
Distributed by British Lion Film Corporation
Release date
  • 15 March 1960 (1960-03-15)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£97,000 [1] [2]

The Angry Silence is a 1960 black-and-white British drama film directed by Guy Green and starring Richard Attenborough, Pier Angeli, Michael Craig and Bernard Lee. [3]

Contents

The film marked the first release through screenwriter Bryan Forbes's production venture, Beaver Films, and Forbes won a BAFTA Award and an Oscar nomination for his contribution (shared with original story writers Michael Craig and Richard Gregson). [4] Green called it a "landmark" in his career. [5]

Synopsis

Factory worker Tom Curtis has two children and his wife, Anna, is pregnant, putting him under financial pressure. Consequently, he refuses to take part in an unofficial strike, meaning a loss of wages, which he is entitled to do. The strike is planned by outside activist Travers and orchestrated by shop steward Bert Connolly, who concocts spurious demands as part of his campaign to pressure the management into agreeing to a closed shop, giving the union greater influence.

Those who continue to work find that their properties are subject to repeated attacks, including bricks through windows and arson, and join the strike out of fear. Curtis alone continues to work in a show of defiance against threats and intimidation.

When the strike ends, Curtis is accused of being a scab and sent to Coventry. [6] Then, when anti-union newspapers interview him and report on his plight, Connolly demands his dismissal, backing his demand with a work to rule and overtime ban. Management fears that continued publicity will mean the loss of a major contract, while some workers take matters into their own hands.

Cast

Production

Kenneth More was initially considered for the role of Tom Curtis but turned it down when offered the lead in Sink the Bismarck!. [7] [8]

Guy Green said "we all felt very noble" not accepting full pay but says the film was excellent for his career. [5]

The film was entered into the 10th Berlin International Film Festival. [9]

Release

After the film's release Richard Attenborough visited a working men's club in Aberdare, South Wales, that was refusing to show the film. Many such clubs had banned the film because of its anti-strike plot. However, after Attenborough explained his position on the film, the miners allowed it to be screened. This was important because, during the 1960s, films required such showings to drive ticket sales. [4]

Reception

Critical

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The first film of a new production company, The Angry Silence bears striking witness to the effect Room at the Top has had on British cinema. One notes its forthright dialogue, contemporary awareness and air of controversy, its energy and its ambition. Too much ambition, perhaps: the film has several themes – mob law, TUC weakness, bad industrial relations, the right to dissent – whose admixture and thorough working out, possible in a novel, are less ideally suited to the cinema. To cover them all successfully would demand a grasp that is as yet beyond Bryan Forbes', the scriptwriter's, capacities. To their credit, the producers, Forbes and Richard Attenborough, have taken evident pains to achieve a surface authenticity." [10]

Variety wrote that Guy Green had directed with 'quiet skill, leaving the film to speak for itself'.

Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic described it as "an excellently made and disturbing film". [11]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "Although this fascinating melodrama was made decades ago, its attitudes to trade unionism and industrial action are curiously contemporary. Screenwriter Bryan Forbes explores a range of political issues, but the practised rhetoric sounds false in the mouths of the rank and file, and the best moments are not the confrontations between strikebreaker Richard Attenborough and his workmates, but those depicting the pressures on his marriage. Attenborough gives a sterling performance, but the acting honours go to Pier Angeli as his distraught wife and Alfred Burke as the devious agent provocateur." [12]

Leslie Halliwell said: "Irresistibly reminding one of a po-faced I'm Alright Jack , this remains a fresh and urgent film which unfortunately lost excitement in its domestic scenes." [13]

Some critics have raised doubts about the politics of the film, particularly with regard to trivialisation of the needs and demands of the workers. [14] Others suggest that the film is also a reflection of British working-class values at the time, such as 'an Englishman's home is his castle'. [15]

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 80%, based on reviews from five critics. [16]

Box office

By 1971 the film made an estimated profit of £58,000. [1] In 1997 Bryan Forbes estimated the profit at £200,000. [2]

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References

  1. 1 2 Alexander Walker, Hollywood, England, Stein and Day, 1974 pp 98-101
  2. 1 2 Brian McFarlane, An Autobiography of British Cinema, Metheun 1997 p193
  3. ↑ "The Angry Silence". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
  4. 1 2 "The Angry Silence: the film they tried to ban". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
  5. 1 2 Schwartzman, Arnold (19 November 1991). "Interview with Guy Green side 3". British Entertainment History Project.
  6. ↑ "The Angry Silence (1960)". BFI . Retrieved 21 November 2015.
  7. ↑ Brian McFarlane, An Autobiography of British Cinema, Metheun 1997 p36
  8. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (16 April 2023). "Surviving Cold Streaks: Kenneth More". Filmink.
  9. ↑ Myers, Harold (29 June 1960). "Berlin Film Fest Unreeling". Variety . p. 5. Retrieved 13 February 2021– via Archive.org.
  10. ↑ "The Angry Silence". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 27 (312): 47. 1 January 1960 – via ProQuest.
  11. ↑ "Stanley Kauffmann on films". The New Republic. 26 October 1960.
  12. ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 40. ISBN   9780992936440.
  13. ↑ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 41. ISBN   0586088946.
  14. ↑ Angry Silence, The (1960) at BFI Screenonline
  15. ↑ Crowther, Bosley. 'Movie Review: The Angry Silence (1960)'. New York Times , 13 December 1960
  16. ↑ "The Angry Silence (1960)". Rotten Tomatoes .
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