User Reviews

John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger", first performed at London's Royal Court Theatre in 1956, is often cited as marking a theatrical revolution. The British theatre of the early fifties, dominated by playwrights like Noel Coward and Terence Rattigan, was widely regarded as genteel, well-mannered and middle-class. Osborne's play can be seen as a deliberate reaction against those values. Its plot is conventional enough. It centres around the stormy marriage of a young couple, Jimmy and Alison Porter, who separate after a series of quarrels. Unknown to Jimmy, Alison is pregnant at the time, and he starts a relationship with her best friend Helena, an actress. Six months later Alison, having lost her baby, returns, and Helena ends her affair with Jimmy so as to allow the couple to be reunited.

What was shocking about the play was its social setting and the attitudes displayed by the characters, especially Jimmy. He is from a working-class family and, although he has a university degree, has turned his back on the sort of well-paid white-collar job that such an educational background would normally have led to in the fifties, working as a trader in the local market, running a sweet stall with his friend Cliff. He and Alison, with Cliff as a lodger, live in a dingy bed-sit in a large Midlands town. Alison herself is from the wealthy upper middle classes (her father is a retired Indian Army officer) and her family resent her marriage to Jimmy.

It was in the late fifties that the term "Angry Young Man" was coined by the critics to describe not only writers such as Osborne, Kingsley Amis and John Braine, but also their characters such as Jimmy Porter and Amis's Lucky Jim, characters who were seen as the mouthpieces of their creators. Jimmy is, to borrow the title of a famous film of the period, a rebel without a cause. He is instinctively suspicious of any form of authority and of the establishment. He is hostile to religion and to the growing conservatism of fifties Britain. He dislikes Alison's family, especially her mother, because he sees them as part of the traditional British ruling class. He does not, however, himself really subscribe to any alternative system of values such as Communism or Socialism. A frequent theme of his complaints is that there are no longer any good causes to fight for; he envies his parents' generation who could fight the anti-fascist battles of the thirties and forties. (His father was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War).

Jimmy's relationship with Alison is a complex one, perhaps best expressed by the cliché that they can neither live with one another nor without one another. On the one hand, the differences in their personalities and their social backgrounds is the cause of constant friction between them. On the other, they have a deep emotional need for one another, shown by their game of "bears and squirrels". To an outsider such as Helena this is mere sentimental whimsy; to them, it is a way of expressing their mutual love.

The British cinema was undergoing a similar revolution in the late fifties to that which was happening in the theatre, with an increasing emphasis on films about working-class life in what became known as "kitchen sink realism". It was, therefore, perhaps inevitable that "Look Back" would be filmed. It is, however, not a very cinematic play. Apart from its plot, it is traditional in another respect, in that it observes two of the three classical unities, those of place and action. The film-makers clearly felt that this structure would not work in the cinema, because they took pains to "open it up". The action moves out of Jimmy's flat- there are scenes set in a jazz club, in the market where Jimmy works and in a theatre where Helena is appearing. Characters, such as Mrs Tanner, who are only referred to in the play actually appear in person in the film. The writers have added a sub-plot, not found in the play, about Jimmy's struggles with an unpleasant market inspector and his attempts to prevent an Indian trader from falling victim to racist discrimination by the other stallholders.

At 115 minutes the film is already shorter than the normal running-time of a stage production of this play, and the insertion of these extra scenes meant that even more of the original text had to be sacrificed. Those who know the play from the theatre, therefore, will find the film version very truncated. Many of Jimmy's lengthy speeches, in particular, have been cut, and the centrality of the relationship between himself and Alison is diluted by the introduction of new characters and new sub-plots. Although "opening up" works when some stage plays are transferred to the screen, in my view this is not one of them. In my opinion the film would have worked better as a piece of "filmed theatre", sticking closer to Osborne's original text.

One reviewer compares this film to "A Streetcar Named Desire", which can be seen as a piece of American "kitchen sink". There are certainly similarities between the two plays, both of which have at their centre an angry, outspoken working-class young man (Stanley/Jimmy), a milder friend (Mitch/Cliff) and two more genteel, middle-class women (Blanche and Stella/Alison and Helena). Both plays, when performed well in the theatre, can also provide a powerful emotional experience. The famous Marlon Brando/Vivien Leigh version of "Streetcar", however, is a better film than "Look Back" because it succeeds in preserving the power of that experience in the cinema. At times, Richard Burton and Mary Ure come close to capturing the impact of Osborne's play, but it is only at times. At other times that impact seems weakened. 7/10

Jimmy Porter (Richard Burton) lives with his demure wife Alison (Mary Ure) and business partner and friend Cliff in a tiny London flat. There is probably no one who can unleash a vicious, rapid-fire verbal attack as well as Richard Burton and that talent is on display here in his fulminations against his wife. A friend of Alison's, Helena, temporarily comes to stay in the already overcrowded space. Alison finally gets enough of the abuse and moves back to live with her wealthy parents and a relationship ensues between Jimmy and Helena. And a pregnancy is thrown in to complicate matters.

It is hard not to compare Jimmy in this melodrama to Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire." They are both brutes and treat their wives abysmally, but they have an animalistic appeal. Brando pulls this off better than Burton does here. It seems that Burton has a hard time reining in his bigger than life personality to play a working class person like Jimmy, who runs a candy stall in a London flea market. I mean, isn't it hard to picture Burton selling chocolates to small children for a living? And he plays his part like he is wanting to reach the folks in the back rows of a theater. All of this is not to say that it isn't a treat to see his performance - he was a great actor.

Trying to figure out the relationships between the four main characters is a task. Jimmy is indeed angry; the source of this anger seems to be that he is an educated man stuck in a dead-end job. Why he takes his anger out so brutally on his wife is hard to understand, and hard to watch. The mismatch in social status between him and his wife is an irritant, but is that enough for him to be so vicious? He is initially insulting to Helena, but that does not deter her from falling for him. On the other hand Jimmy treats his friend and coworkers quite civilly and goes out of his way to defend an Indian gentleman who is being discriminated against. But Jimmy's vulnerability and pain does leak out on occasion. I felt that I understood him best through his playing the trumpet. The solo he plays toward the end expresses such sadness, pain and despair that you feel you are getting to the core of the man. After the solo in the nightclub, the audience is stunned into silence.

I found the atmospheric black and white photography and editing to be impressive. There are many abrupt cuts from one scene to the next that at first I found discordant, but then I came to appreciate them - why linger on a scene when its essence has been established. And the quick cuts are consistent with, and help establish, the emotional tone.

This role for Burton could be considered a warm-up for his great performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." There he had a sparring partner in Elizabeth Taylor who could give back whatever he dished out.

"Look back in Anger" was not an instant hit as a play.It took the transmission by ITV of a truncated version starring Richard Pascoe as Jimmy Porter to bring it to a wider less theatrically sophisticated audience and,by extension,popularise it.This action was also incidentally the intention of John Osbourne who,along with the others in the so - called "Kitchen Sink" movement was to reclaim the theatre for ordinary working people by writing about lives and situations that had some relevance to their own. The play was to some extent autobiographical as far as it reflected Osbourne's first marriage,but Osbourne himself was no Jimmy Porter , rather he invented Porter as a character to give himself a platform on which to articulate those views that no one would listen to if he personally was to express them. Once Porter was accepted as a "voice",Osbourne could happily say whatever he liked(and frequently did) without necessarily believing in any or all of it. The form of the play was reassuringly traditional - nothing of the Beckett or Brecht about it - but the content was viciously "anti - theatre". With Osbourne's known admiration for Music Hall and Variety it is tempting to see parallels between Porter and the great Tony Hancock. Both inveterate snobs,prone to stream of consciousness dialogue,world class ranters living in seedy digs with subordinate pals.Both these great creations talk the talk but ultimately fail to walk the walk. In using Richard Burton for the movie version Tony Richardson made a fatal - if understandable - error.Too physically beautiful,too "Actorish",paradoxically too well - known,too recognisably not an embittered University Man running a market stall in order to remain true to his principles and prejudices.And once your lead has been compromised everything else around it begins collapsing. Taking Porter away from his soapbox and out onto the street further weakens the film.The efficacy of the play is to a large extent dependent on the claustrophobic gloomy set. Mr Osbourne was not a poet of the working - class,he was a poet for the working - class,not the same thing at all.He may have had hated all that he believed England had become,but like Jimmy,he chose to do nothing about it.Instead,through his mouthpiece,he chose to bellow clever words that appealed to the Armchair Revolutionaries of half a century ago and still appeal to their counterparts today. The trouble is the same snouts are still deep in the trough and the same people are still out in the cold.And it's still deeds,not words,that count.

First off, Burton's way too old for the part of Jimmy Porter here. Burton was 33 when the film was made, and his features were already beginning to coarsen because of his lifestyle. That said, he gives a blistering performance, capturing the ferocious intelligence – and equally ferocious anger –writer John Osborne no doubt envisioned.

But what a grim tale it is. What a gloomy, dingy, rain-sodden world Jimmy, Alison, Cliff and Helena inhabit. Crammed inside a seedy flat with barely enough room for two chairs and an ironing board, it's no wonder that tempers fray at times – in fact it's a wonder that only Jimmy feels any kind of strain. Alison his wife, perfectly played by the ill-fated Mary Ure, has the patience of a saint and it's difficult to see exactly what it is about Jimmy that draws her to him. Osborne certainly provides us with precious little clue. But then perhaps it's just me, because I could see little reason for Jimmy – transformed from a seething mass of anger and a brooding sense of injustice into a relatively contented man once he takes up with Helena – to return to his wife. Most viewers will be able to identify with his sense of being trapped in a drab life and desperately wanting more but, while his transformation came as something unexpected, the conclusion seemed to make no sense at all. Perhaps it signals a new maturity in Jimmy – his essential goodness and sense of right has already been illustrated by his defence of the black stallholder the officious Donald Pleasance attempts to eject from the market – but it just seems a strangely inconclusive way of doing so. Jimmy simply comes across as impulsive rather than mature.

For all that, the performances here are excellent throughout, and the story does keep you interested even if it does strain credibility in the final act. Probably undeserving of its lofty status, it still provides a good example of the 'kitchen sink' drama with which Britain would become obsessed in the late fifties and early sixties.

"Kitchen Sink" drama was in its ascendancy when this film adaptation of John Osborne's play was transferred to the screen in 1959.

Philosophically, it's very much in keeping with the conventional, (and by now extremely predictable) views of the counterculture, then viewed through the prism of "the beats" but ten years after through the prism of the hippies.

Thus, we have Richard Burton, playing a young man, (a role for which he is already far too old as he looks very middle aged here) who has chosen to eke out an existence as a street vendor of penny candy by day.

By night, he is an amateur musician and misanthrope, drowning in an ocean of self pity which he assuages with alcohol and wife beating.

His apartment is regulation 1959 degradation model A-1, with girlie pin ups for art, the ironing board in the middle of the room, last weeks newspapers piled everywhere, and walls as pock marked as his un-pancaked oily complexion.

Oh, and he has a wife, a platinum blonde, whom he slaps around, and who, discovers she is expecting in one of the film's climactic revelations.

But pending fatherhood is no reason to remain faithful, and, thus, when his wife, unable to tolerate more abuse, returns to her parental home, he takes up with a visiting actress.

That the actress is played by the exquisitely cultivated and beauteous Claire Bloom strains credibility to the breaking point, (why would she put up with such as this?).

And it is to Miss Bloom that he directs some of Osborne's more pungent counter cultural observations--blaming those bloody Edwardians with their Rupert Brooke notions of honor, duty, propriety and respectability who mucked up everything--got it all wrong--it's more honest to live in a flea bitten flop-house and play amateur trumpet by night.

Then there's his free love advocacy:, "you can't be both a saint and live--you have to choose one or the other." Did you hear that St. Thomas More? This achingly relevant study of a man in extended childhood, though technically well executed, is as tedious and false as its underlying and very bankrupt philosophy.

Interestingly, for a film celebrated for its unrelenting realism, 'Look Back in Anger (1958)' is entrenched in theatricality. From the compact cast, the cramped sets, and the verbose dialogue, I guessed (correctly, as it turned out) that Tony Richardson's film was surely adapted from a play. John Osborne's production of "Look Back in Anger" initially premiered in 1956 to considerable success, and the characteristic harshness of his writing, exposing the unpleasant underbelly of working-class life, spawned the phrase "angry young men" to describe Osborne and other British playwrights who explored similar themes. Richardson's film triggered what is often described as a British New Wave, a movement of important (or perhaps self-important) films that explored pressing political issues and, in particular, the social alienation borne from class distinction. Easily the best example I've come across so far is Jack Clayton's 'Room at the Top (1959),' which obviously followed in the footsteps of this picture. The film's strong, intimate cast includes Richard Burton, Claire Bloom (of Chaplin's 'Limelight (1952)'), Mary Ure, Gary Raymond and Donald Pleasence.

Over the years, many films have explored the anger and prejudices of disturbed and alienated men. But, even in the most powerful of these – such as Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver (1976)' and 'Raging Bull (1980)' – the filmmaker distances himself from his characters' prejudices. 'Look Back in Anger' doesn't seem to do this. Whether it's Osborne's dialogue, or Burton's phenomenal execution, everything Jimmy Porter says comes across as a genuinely bitter attack on contemporary society. When Porter questions the worth of his wife, or cruelly disparages her middle-class parents, the attack seems to be coming from the author himself {my research tells me that Osborne's play was strongly autobiographical, based on his failed marriage to Pamela Lane – this offers some explanation for the apparent bitterness}. In fact, so venomous is Porter's tongue that wife Alison is afraid to reveal to him that she's pregnant, and, shockingly, he appears not to care, in any case. Only towards maternal-figure Mrs Tanner (Edith Evans) does he show genuine compassion, his hostility is only amplified by her passing.

Richard Burton, however tied to the stage is his performance, nonetheless commands the screen in every scene. His anger is so pure and undiluted, made all the more shocking because he otherwise speaks with the eloquence of an educated and civilised man. If its dialogue is undoubtedly tied to the stage, then 'Look Back in Anger' achieves realism through its more cinematic traits. The film was photographed by Oswald Morris – a talented cinematographer who also worked with, among others, Stanley Kubrick, John Huston and Carol Reed – who exquisitely captures the shadowy decadence of working-class London. There's a grittiness to Porter's squalid surroundings, sometimes he almost seems trapped in a noirish urban backwater. Stylistically, the film closely resembles Lean's 'Brief Encounter (1945)' – probably because both have brilliant scenes set on a railway platform, amid the smoke of a idle locomotive. Subsequent "kitchen sink" dramas also owe their visual aesthetic to Morris' work here, just as British cinema owes its brief late-1950s revival to Osborne and Richardson.

Being an early fan of black & white flicks from the late fifties, as well as a devoted Richard Burton follower, I must say I have waited for this movie with great anticipation. I must say, sadly though, that, despite the picture's attempts of shedding some light on the so-called "British reality at the time", only the performance of Richard Burton really saves this one from drowning in the sea of typical semi-documentary movies.

Basically, I do believe and respect the message of the movie influenced by the various events of those particular times, but it doesn't really work here. I mean, I understand the crisis people were facing back then and I agree it was an important issue, but showing us the historical background by presenting the effects of such a process on a typical family just ... well, frankly, doesn't prove to be interesting. That can also be a very lame excuse for the lack of character depth, Jimmy Porter being the most developed. But even Porter has many character flaws ; he plays A trumpet (ok, but what does that mean to him, how does it fit in his character image and the plot), he's mad with grief and everlasting sorrow transformed into anger because of his loved one's loss (ok, it does play a part in the plot later, but basically no one gives a damn about it, no one really pities Jimmy Porter, everyone seems to float in a state of blissful ignorance around him, treating him like a 100% savage monster and practically stripping him of natural emotions). In short - Burton's character, no doubt being the best character in this picture, could be developed in these typical and non-typical branches, making him a worthy and interesting figure.

The rest is... well, close to pathetic. The wife is coming towards a breakdown in the beginning of the movie and yet she ends up in Jim's arms in calm reunion, no outburst, no equal conflict, no nothing. The pretty boy, Cliff, is someone really strange and definitely not fitting for this kind of situation. He can't seem to be holding to any logical rules of morality when it comes to protecting Jim's wife (which he does with two or three muttered words throughout the entire picture). In the same time, he's all friends with Jimmy, like an unnatural, transparent entity, floating from one character to another. And it's not like I don't see an attempted analogy to the bridge thing between two sides, I see that perfectly - it's just frigging' unconvincing and shallow. And of course, Claire Bloom. Oh, my dear Ms. Bloom, the same actress has been praised by me about a year ago when watching "The Haunting". The wasted potential, the wasted opportunities that came up when Claire Bloom joined the crew and apparently became a character opposite to the little, meek wife of Jimmy Porter. Besides going through series of irrational behavior and bad performance, the rest of the crew really can't bring out the intended emotions out of their characters, truly a pity.

The music, mostly consisting of Jimmie's trumpet solos, was quite enjoyable as it added a droplet of the good old British pub climate. It's a shame the spell was quickly broken by an unfortunate or bad time dialog.

Having no more to say, I would like to recommend this movie to all Burton fans because I believe it shows an interesting stage in his career and evolution as an actor. Here, Richard Burton is, little by little, morphing into that perfect form of acting which he presented later to the delight of the audiences worldwide.

Jimmy Porter might be the most insufferable protagonist in all drama. Self-pitying and impotent in his politically motivated rage, he takes his rage out on his passive wife, whose sole sin is that she hasn't suffered enough in life due to her upper class upbringing. God forbid! It's telling that Jimmy's go-to word for insulting women is not any of the usual suspects, but "virgin." Jimmy craves people who are "alive," people willing to risk pain and messiness, and for him, a virgin is just the opposite, someone too scared to taste life. These are all interesting ideas, but Jimmy often seems the author of his own misery and all too content to make sure the people around him are miserable too.

In that regard, the film version of LOOK BACK IN ANGER at the very least tries to make Jimmy a bit more nuanced or at least less hypocritical in his whining and moaning about the system. We seem him try to make some small difference by helping out an immigrant seller at the market where he works. Of course, the system is rigged and even the working classes see no great need for loyalty. This subplot-- far from useless as some of the reviews here claim-- actually makes Jimmy more tragic and bearable. He's resigned himself to a theatrical misanthropy because he feels there is no fighting the system.

It's a well-directed and acted film on the whole. I liked it better than the play, even though Jimmy is still a lot to take and I have no idea why the women characters love him so much beyond the typical allure of the "bad boy."