Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Jun 20, 2018 14:23:04 GMT
Ive just rewatched this again on one of the film channels this afternoon and it has reminded me of just what a fantastic film it is. The locations are just superb, all around Manchester, Oldham, Blackburn, Bolton, and best of all, my home town of Radcliffe. The acting by Alan Bates and Thora Hird, As the mother in law from hell was amazing. It brought back childhood memories as that’s was a slice of life from Lancashire then and I remember people and places like that when I was a kid.
It it has a good message too, don’t rush into relationships and waste your life and opportunities. Some familiar faces in the cast, James Bolam, Jack Smethurst, Leonard Rossiter and Bryan Moseley in a bit part as a bus conductor.
Great film.
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Post by Charles Bronson on Jun 20, 2018 14:45:59 GMT
Ive just rewatched this again on one of the film channels this afternoon and it has reminded me of just what a fantastic film it is. The locations are just superb, all around Manchester, Oldham, Blackburn, Bolton, and best of all, my home town of Radcliffe. The acting by Alan Bates and Thora Hird, As the mother in law from hell was amazing. It brought back childhood memories as that’s was a slice of life from Lancashire then and I remember people and places like that when I was a kid. It it has a good message too, don’t rush into relationships and waste your life and opportunities. Some familiar faces in the cast, James Bolam, Jack Smethurst, Leonard Rossiter and Bryan Moseley in a bit part as a bus conductor. Great film. It's amazing the social changes since that film came out, 'Shot gun' weddings and the like where the order of the day then just prior to the Beatles and the swinging sixties.. |
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Jun 20, 2018 14:58:02 GMT
The sixties didn’t swing in Lancashire. I remember a lad I was at school with getting in a similar situation and ending up in a shotgun wedding, that was in the late 70s.
I have always thought ought that all this stuff about the 60s and so on happened to about 50 people, all of whom lived in West London and went on to work in the media.
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Lord Emsworth
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Post by Lord Emsworth on May 11, 2022 17:29:33 GMT
Ive just rewatched this again on one of the film channels this afternoon and it has reminded me of just what a fantastic film it is. The locations are just superb, all around Manchester, Oldham, Blackburn, Bolton, and best of all, my home town of Radcliffe. The acting by Alan Bates and Thora Hird, As the mother in law from hell was amazing. It brought back childhood memories as that’s was a slice of life from Lancashire then and I remember people and places like that when I was a kid. It it has a good message too, don’t rush into relationships and waste your life and opportunities. Some familiar faces in the cast, James Bolam, Jack Smethurst, Leonard Rossiter and Bryan Moseley in a bit part as a bus conductor. Great film. It is indeed a wonderful film I've also got the TV adapation on DVD still to watch I also highly recommend the book. I've read many of the kitchen sink/angry young man novels of the late 1950s and early 1960s (by the likes of Alan Sillitoe, John Braine, David Storey and Keith Waterhouse) and what differentiates A Kind of Loving (1960) is the personality of central character Vic Brown.
A Kind of Loving is a clear eyed, unsentimental and realistic portrait of an intelligent young man who gets trapped in a loveless marriage having got Ingrid, his girlfriend, pregnant. Stan Barstow's genius here is to keep Vic a sympathetic character despite some cynical decisions and bad behaviour.
Unlike Joe Lampton in Room at the Top, Vic is relatively content with his life and prospects and, like his recently married sister, aspires to fall in love and enjoy a happy marriage. Despite a powerful physical attraction to Ingrid he knows he doesn't love her but feels compelled to get married once she falls pregnant.
Although the heart of the novel is an exploration of Vic's confusion and anguish at being trapped in the expectations of respectable working class families at the moment society was starting to change, it is also powerful and effective in its depiction of life in a small Yorkshire town in 1960. It's all so intensely evoked: the pubs, the work places, family life, smoking, cinemas, cafes, dancehalls etc.
This unpatronising portrayal of working class life in northern England in 1960 remains a vivid and powerful read.
A Kind of Loving was the first of a trilogy, published over the course of sixteen years, that followed hero Vic Brown through marriage, divorce and a move from the mining town of Cressley to London. The other two parts are The Watchers On The Shore and The Right True End. I've read those two as well. Not as good as the first novel but still well worth reading if you like this sort of stuff.   |
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on May 11, 2022 19:01:51 GMT
I've read many of the kitchen sink/angry young man novels of the late 1950s and early 1960s (by the likes of Alan Sillitoe, John Braine, David Storey and Keith Waterhouse) and what differentiates A Kind of Loving (1960) is the personality of central character Vic Brown.
A Kind of Loving is a clear eyed, unsentimental and realistic portrait of an intelligent young man who gets trapped in a loveless marriage having got Ingrid, his girlfriend, pregnant. Stan Barstow's genius here is to keep Vic a sympathetic character despite some cynical decisions and bad behaviour. Spot on. The South had John Osborne and Joe Orton and the North had its fair share of talented angry young men. Barstow is a particular favourite of mine and his short stories are great too. I ended up buying the 80s TV adaptation of A Kind of Loving from Network a few years ago and, whilst not up to the film version, is still a great remake and an early starring role for Joanne Whalley. On the subject of Room At The Top, this is a piece of work I always considered myself being very familiar with having seen the 1958 film and read the novel several times. Some of the scenes in the 1958 film used the interior of my place of work (I wasn't around then, of course) and a small part of my current job involves taking interested groups around on tours of the building. So around ten years ago when BBC Four decided to do a two-part remake, they filmed many of the scenes at my workplace. In the afternoon of the eve of the debut transmission on BBC Four, I gave a tour to a bunch of posh retired ladies from a select Rotary Club. Boasting about our film heritage I told them "Watch Room at the Top tonight. They filmed it here. You'll enjoy it !" When I sat down to watch it myself that evening, my jaw dropped. Rather than a straight remake of the 1958 version, they had SIGNIFICANTLY spiced up the story with added raunchy sex scenes and very naughty words that certainly weren't in John Braine's original novel. I had nightmares about how I might have induced premature death from shock amongst the senior population of a local village.  And the legacy of the remake is that some of my colleagues have renamed one part of the building where a particular steamy scene took place, The Knee-Tr*mble Staircase. |
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Lord Emsworth
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Post by Lord Emsworth on May 12, 2022 8:59:50 GMT
So around ten years ago when BBC Four decided to do a two-part remake, they filmed many of the scenes at my workplace. In the afternoon of the eve of the debut transmission on BBC Four, I gave a tour to a bunch of posh retired ladies from a select Rotary Club. Boasting about our film heritage I told them "Watch Room at the Top tonight. They filmed it here. You'll enjoy it !" When I sat down to watch it myself that evening, my jaw dropped. Rather than a straight remake of the 1958 version, they had SIGNIFICANTLY spiced up the story with added raunchy sex scenes and very naughty words that certainly weren't in John Braine's original novel. I had nightmares about how I might have induced premature death from shock amongst the senior population of a local village.  And the legacy of the remake is that some of my colleagues have renamed one part of the building where a particular steamy scene took place, The Knee-Tr*mble Staircase.Classic! That made me laugh out loud Nightfly I've got the DVD of the TV remake ready and waiting. Thanks for the warning - I'm now braced for some steamy moments.
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on May 12, 2022 18:35:46 GMT
I've just come across another interesting looking film in this kind of vein, which I hadn't heard of, called The Whisperers, made in 1967 directed by Bryan Forbes. It was filmed in Oldham and Nanette Newman was in it, along with Edith Evans.
I've only seen bits of it so far, will get into it shortly on YouTube
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Lord Emsworth
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Post by Lord Emsworth on May 16, 2022 7:32:17 GMT
I've just come across another interesting looking film in this kind of vein, which I hadn't heard of, called The Whisperers, made in 1967 directed by Bryan Forbes. It was filmed in Oldham and Nanette Newman was in it, along with Edith Evans. I've only seen bits of it so far, will get into it shortly on YouTube Thanks Cartman - sounds promising |
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And the legacy of the remake is that some of my colleagues have renamed one part of the building where a particular steamy scene took place, The Knee-Tr*mble Staircase.
And the legacy of the remake is that some of my colleagues have renamed one part of the building where a particular steamy scene took place, The Knee-Tr*mble Staircase.