Country: UK
Year: 1956
Duration: 22'


"This sympathetic, infectious study of an evening at a North London jazz club was one of the films in the first Free Cinema programme. Then it was one of a handful of live films in a dead landscape. Now it can be seen as a pioneer work in a movement which is winning acceptance in the theatre and shows signs of establishing a hold in the cinema. The early sequences of the teenagers leaving their jobs have an openeye awareness that is now becoming more common, and the essential affection and warmth of the lengthy dance sequences no longer seem quite so exceptional.
The invasion of the young group of socialites out on a slumming spree still seems a rather conscious setpiece, amusing, ironic, but too carefully balanced against the natural gaiety and joy of the rest. Apart from this the mood is tenderly sustained. The directors have shown that rejecting the sensational does not involve forfeiting vigour.
Walter Lassally's realistic camerawork and John Fletcher's complex but never flashy cutting are exactly in keeping with the film's vitality. The musicians are marvellous, and the teenagers themselves hypnotically at ease." ("Monthly Film Bulletin", n, 309, October 1959, p. 141)

Biography

film director

Karel Reisz

FILMOGRAFIA

Momma Don’t Allow (cm, doc., 1955), We Are the Lambeth Boys (Siamo i ragazzi di Lambeth, doc., 1958), March to Aldermaston (cm, doc., 1959), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Sabato sera, domenica mattina, 1960), Night Must Fall (La doppia vita di Dan Craig, 1964), Morgan! (Morgan matto da legare, 1966), Isadora (id., 1968), The Gambler (40.000 dollari per non morire, 1974), Who’ll Stop the Rain (Guerrieri dell’inferno, 1978), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (La donna del tenente francese, 1981), Sweet Dreams (id., 1985), Everybody Wins (Alla ricerca dell’assassino, 1990), Performance (ep., tv, 1994), Act Without Words I (cm, tv, 2000).

Cast

& Credits

Director: Karel Reisz.
Coregia: Tony Richardson.
Screenplay: Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson.
Director of photography: Walter Lassally.
Montaggio e suono: John Fletcher.
Assistenti: Dorothy Harper, Kenneth Goodman, Kenneth Lindsay, David Pitt.
Interpreti musicali: Chris Barber (trombone), Pat Halcox (tromba), Monty Sunshine (clarinetto), Lonnie Donnegan (chitarra), Jim Bray (basso), Ron Bowden (batteria), Ottilie Patterson (canto).
Production company: British Film Institute Experimental Film Fund.
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