Look Back in Anger

"Look Back In Anger" is a mostly good reproduction of John Osborne's stage play about a college-educated Englishman trapped in a dank working class existence and lashing out at everyone around him. The performances are excellent all around; Mary Ure's I found the most moving as the fragile upper-class wife. My only complaint is the elements of staginess that were not expelled from the original incarnation: what Richard Burton does in this movie works better on the stage than it does on film. The screen is already larger than life, he doesn't need to expand the performance the way he does. As I was watching it, I found myself easily picturing Robin Williams performing the same material as a parody of gross overacting. For this, I blame the director Tony Richardson for not restraining him somewhat. I've actually liked Burton better in more modulated performances in lousy movies (the VIPs, The Comedians). Burton is a great talent, but he sometimes has the effect of a baseball pitcher with "great stuff"; he attacks the batters with pure heat and no finesse. There are also bits of business that should have been excised, like Burton and Gary Raymond's occasional breaks into Music Hall skits. That is exclusively a stage bit; it doesn't develop the characters and stops the dramatic flow.

Richardson, otherwise, shows good understanding of the film medium. The look of it is about right- the characters are the right distance from the camera to deliver their lines for maximum impact (in other words, the shots aren't cramped with close-ups in an already cramped apartment). And some scenes are shot exceptionally well: the last scene in the fog and mist with Burton and Mary Ure silhouetted is superb, as is the shot in the small doorway where Miss Ure must decide whether to join her husband or go to church with Claire Bloom's character, while Miss Bloom holds open the tiny door that exposes a flurry of street activity.

"Look Back In Anger" is a well-done film, although I think Richard Burton's assault of the audience as well as the other characters keeps it from true greatness. 3 *** out of 4

Those people in Britain who hark back to some kind of mythical golden age. Meet Jimmy Porter from 1959. Here is a well balanced individual. He has a chip on both shoulders!

Jimmy Porter (Richard Burton) is an angry young man in Derby. A working class lad with a university degree who is bitter at the world and whatever injustices it holds.

Jimmy works in a market stall with his amiable Welsh lodger Cliff, both enjoy jazz in the evenings. Jimmy is married to an upper middle class wife Alison (Mary Ure) who he is constantly mean to. Cliff tries to keep the peace.

When Alison invites her actress friend Helena (Clair Bloom) to stay with them. Tension between the couple increases especially with someone close to Jimmy becoming seriously ill. Jimmy also despises Helena and Alison leaves him unable to tell him that she is pregnant.

In a twist, Helena who also loathes Jimmy ends up becoming his lover. It leads to the viewer to think if she engineered Alison's departure.

Director Tony Richardson was inspired by the French New Wave of realist cinema. It features a powerhouse performance from Burton. All rage and fury yet compassionate to the little fellow, here an Indian market trader constantly discriminated against.

Looking back at the film, Jimmy Porter comes across as a petty mean bully against his wife rather than a grey bleak post war Britain unsure of itself with the loss of an empire. He could had social climbed the corporate ladder with his degree but seems to have wasted any potential opportunities.

Look Back in Anger heralded a new type of film with a different portrayal of the working classes, more raw and honest. Ironically writer John Osborne who wrote the original stage play became a country squire later in life. The original angry young man ended up being rather fond of the establishment that he once detested.

What must have seemed like a stunning piece of "kitchen sink" realism at the time, now looks a bit too staged and artificial because the performances are keyed to the stage rather than film. Ironically, they work against the natural, low-key settings of the dingy flat that is the centerpiece of the story--at least for much of the film.

Tony Richardson has opened the stage play with the result that he's had to cut down on all the expository stage dialog to give us a direct view of the angry young man (RICHARD BURTON) in his present surroundings. Burton attacks his role with a ferocity that is reminiscent of the way Kirk Douglas attacked such a role in YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, another angry young man American style.

The film successfully followed the pattern of other such stories that emerged during the hectic '50s, the James Dean struggles for independence as a troubled youth, only here the accent is on the slowly disintegrating marriage of Burton and MARY URE, repeating the role she played on the London stage, while he lashes out at society for condemning him to a dreary working class life he knows is below his station.

RICHARD BURTON plays the lead with theatrical flourishes and GARY RAYMOND and CLAIRE BLOOM (as "the other woman") are fine in less showy roles.

Summing up: Stripped of most of the explosive dialog that made the play such a steamy hit in London, the film manages to be little more than an atmospheric B&W look at the squalor and depression of the times among the lower classes.

There's a very angry lad by name of Jimmy, lives on a squalid upstairs floor, that's rather dingy, seems to hate his gorgeous lass, because she has a bit of class, a perpetual complainer whose quite whingey. Things get worse when wife's friend Helena arrives, as they lock horns, and he goes into overdrive, rage and fury then ensue, there's nothing Alison can do, she calls her father, who picks her up, and off they drive - and right on cue, Helena drops her drawers!

Why on earth would such a lovely lass marry a person with such an uncontrollable rage, almost to the extent that it comes across as a mental illness. For me, Richard Burton layers on the anger so much that it detracts from the frustration a man in his position would more realistically feel, and the way it would present.

Fine dialogue, the rest of the cast are brilliant, just an over the top performance from someone playing the most melodramatic way they can, detracts from the whole, unfortunately.

LOOK BACK IN ANGER has the distinction of being one of the first kitchen sink dramas that would become all the rage in the early 1960s. It's an adaptation of the famous John Osborne play about an angry young man and the love triangle in which he finds himself involving his wife and her best friend. I was surprised to see that Nigel Kneale adapted the story for the screen as this is well away from his comfort zone of science fiction and weirdness.

The film features a typically bullish performance from Richard Burton as the protagonist who spends the entire running time bullying the women in his life (apart from his mother, as he loves her). Yes, the film is in essence a couple of of hours of Burton abusing people, so I didn't find it particularly entertaining. The characters are certainly well drawn with plenty of depth and more than realistic, but as a slice-of-life story nothing much really happens during the running time (there are no character arcs or anything like that) and I was left feeling depressed about what I'd just watched more than anything else.