Look Back in Anger (1959)

Synopsis: Tony Richardson's first film is this adaptation of John Osborne's landmark play, as Britain's two leading Angry Young Men fired the opening salvo in the war on the false values of their post-World... Tony Richardson's first film is this adaptation of John Osborne's landmark play, as Britain's two leading Angry Young Men fired the opening salvo in the war on the false values of their post-World War II society. To a theater audience accustomed to the whodunits of J.B. Priestley, the period verse drama of Christopher Fry, and the drawing room comedy of Noël Coward, the scathing epigrams of Osborne's Jimmy Porter burned like napalm. Richard Burton stars as the disenchanted Jimmy, a university graduate from a working-class background, currently running a candy stall on the street by day and playing jazz at night. He shares a flat with wife Alison (Mary Ure) and, while there, spends much of his time venting his spleen against the British class system, conventional society, the couple's poverty, his wife's upper-crust family, and, most of all, his wife and himself, among a wide array of targets. Kenneth Tynan described the couple as "two attractive young animals engaged in competitive martyrdom," a succinct summary. After a particularly intense session, Alison's actress friend Helena (Claire Bloom) suggests that she leave Jimmy, and she does. Burton gives arguably his best performance on film, backed by a powerhouse supporting cast that includes Edith Evans and Donald Pleasence. Richardson is brilliant in his film debut, keeping the camera close enough to tell which barbs are really landing in these wounded characters. [More]

Starring: Richard Burton, Mary Ure, Claire Bloom, Edith Evans

Starring: Richard Burton, Mary Ure, Claire Bloom, Edith Evans

Director: Tony Richardson

Director: Tony Richardson

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