Look Back in Anger

Jimmy Porter is married to Alison. He is a candy seller at a stand. She is from a higher social class. All his rebellion and discontent with an unjust social system that blocks off his generation from any hope for the future blows off mainly against Alison. She puts up with Jimmy's attacks until she notices that she is pregnant. After a violent fight, she leaves him and goes back to her parents. Jimmy lives for a littIe while with Helena, a friend of his wife, who he relates to in the same way. But when he comes to know that his son was born dead, he realizes that he needs Alison and asks her to return to him.

"A bare plot outline is incapable of indicating the qualities of Look Back in Anger: they drive from the impetus of Jimmy's anger the power of its expressions, the honesty with which the writing hacks its way through an emotional jungle. Nigel Kneale's adaptation, technically an extraordinarily clever one, sacrifices the claustrophobic tensions of the play, the long speeches in which Jimmy Porter defines his aggressions, but gives more weight to the personal drama. Tony Richardson, directing his first feature, has given it a tough, vital style which represents something new in British cinema. His cameraman, Oswald Morris, has responded to the challenge of the 'intimate' subject with harsh, realistically lit exteriors and extensive and imaginative use of closeup. All in all, from 'the best young play of its generation' has invigoratingly come the best young (British) film of our generation." ("Monthly Film Bulletin", June 1959, p. 68)

Director: Tony Richardson.
Screenplay: Nigel Kneale, dalla commedia di John Osborne.
Director of photography: Oswald Morris.
Editor: Richard Best.
Art director: Peter Glazier.
Music: Chris Barber and his Band.
Cast: Richard Burton (Jimmy Porter), Claire Bloom (Helena Charles), Mary Ure (Alison Porter), Dame Edith Evans (Mrs. Tanner), Gary Raymond (Cliff), Glen Byam Shaw (il colonnello Redfern), Donald Pleasence (Hurst), Jane Eccles (la signora Drury), S.P. Kapoor (Kapoor).
Production company: Gordon T.L. Scotto, Harry Saltzman per la Woodfall.