The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Colin Smith, a socially deprived youth, is arrested for robbery and sent to Ruxton Towers, a Borstal institution (the British equivalent of a reformatory). When Colin proves to be an excellent longdistance runner the Borstal governor decides to train him for an upcoming crosscountry race, the first between the institution and a local public school. However the governor's faith in him leaves Colin feeling "bloodyminded"; although easily in the lead during the race, within sight of the finish he stops and lets his competitor win. As a result of his behavior Colin is returned to dreary manual labor stripping down gas masks in the Borstal workshops.

"In adapting the screenplay from his novella of 1959, Alan Sillitoe pointed up even more emphatically his hero's fight against authority. The reformatory in which he finds himself comes to represent for Colin Smith the hostile society at large. While running he is able to substitute in his mind that one symbol of authoritarianism for each of the authority figures he has encountered in his life; during the long, solitary training runs, Colin recalls for example, his disgust at his mother's squandering of his father's life insurance and the impulsiveness that led him to robbery. Yet The Loneliness of the LongDistance Runner has a rather romantic aura when compared with the realism or what passes for realism of Room at the Top or Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Indeed, Tony Richardson has described the film as 'a poetic assertion of the individual's right to defy society'. Richardson's direction shows evidence of that poetic form of realism in the way it mixes documentarystyle footage, such as the fight sequence, with the cold beauty of the scenes of Colin Wilson's running." (Anthony Slide, Fifty Classic British Films, New York, Dover Publications, 1985, p. 106)

Director: Tony Richardson.
Screenplay: Alan Sillitoe, dal suo romanzo.
Director of photography: Walter Lassally.
Editor: Anthony Gibbs.
Art director: Ralph Brinton, Ted Marshall.
Music: John Addison.
Cast: Tom Courtenay (Colin Smith), James Bolan (Mike), Avis Bunnage (Mrs. Smith), Michael Redgrave (il direttore del riformatorio), Alec McCowen (Brown), Joe Robinson (Roach), Topsy Jane (Audrey), Julia Foster (Gladys), Dervis Ward (il poliziotto), James Cairncross (Jones), Philip Martin (Stacey), Peter Madden (Mr. Smith), Peter Duguid (il dottore), John Bull (Ronalds), William Ashe (Gunthorpe), Raymond Dyer (Gordon), Peter Kriss (Scott), Anthony Sagar (Fenton), John Thaw (Bosworth), Dallas Cavell (lord Jasper), Anita Oliver (Alice).
Production company: Tony Richardson per la Woodfall.