gift stall - A Kind Of Loving [1962]

List Price: £5.99
Our Price: £17.95
Your Save: £ 0.00 ( % )
Availability:
Manufacturer: 4 Front Video
Starring: Alan Bates, June Ritchie, Thora Hird, Bert Palmer, Malcolm Patton
Directed By: John Schlesinger

Average Customer Rating:

Audience Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 5014783809625
Format: Black & White
Label: 4 Front Video
Manufacturer: 4 Front Video
Number Of Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 4 Front Video
Release Date: 2001-01-08
Running Time: 107
Studio: 4 Front Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1962-10-01

Related Items
Poor Cow The Family Way [1966] Billy Liar [1963] Georgy Girl [1966] The L-Shaped Room [1962]

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: A different world?
Comment: If your hair is just beginning to go grey at the edges, you will very likely join the ranks of those who feel nostalgic for their lost youth. This marvellous film from the very beginning of the 1960s is another example (with the even better 'Saturday Night & Sunday Morning' for example) of a Britain that has gone for ever. Although filmed in black & white, one really gets the feeling of a grim and gritty country where the austerity brought on by the war hasn't yet disappeared and where the streets are just as narrow as the ideas and opinions. It seems an age ago - steam trains, an almost empty hospital car park, young people riding on buses instead of having their own motorbike or cars. In just over 40 years, the nation's morality has been turned upside down: because of what people might say or think, a young man daren't go into a chemists' and ask a woman assistant for a packet of condoms. Unimaginable today. And as a result, as in the other film mentioned, a young woman becomes pregnant and the protagonists' lives are changed for ever. Here, there is no question of an abortion, of simply living together, of having a child out of wedlock - Vic Brown (Alan Bates) has to do the "right thing" and face the consequences of his act and marry the girl (June Ritchie). A family begins on the wrong foot and for all the wrong reasons and there is little chance that things will eventually turn out for the better, especially as the impoverished couple is forced to reside with the girl's fearsome mother, beautifully played as always by Thora Hird. Here, Vic is considered to be little more than a lodger, which makes the situation intolerable. They stay together even after the baby is lost as marriage in those days was 'a life sentence', for good or for bad. No question of just a quick divorce.

What is most striking in films such as this is not actually the way the country itself has changed physically but the way attitudes have evolved. Would today's younger generation be able to equate with this couple who seems worlds away from the present-day permissive society? Would they understand the narow-minded bigoted attitudes of this period which is only a generation away? A world where "right's right and wrong's wrong" as Vic's sister says, she who, in contrast, married happily for love at the beginning of the film. This is a world where it is alright to smoke anywhere in the house except for the bedroom. The couple finally decide to stay together, to give it a chance once away from the overbearing mother-in-law. As in SN&SM, it ends on a note of optimism for the future. One is left wondering, however, if the 'progress' over the intervening 45 years is all for the better.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Get your Brylcreem off my antimacassar!
Comment: Stan Barstow was one of the most underrated writers of the sixties and the following decades,and a hell of a nice bloke. Schlessinger does a
great job of translating it to film without losing much of Barstow's incisive writing. Alan Bates and June Ritchie (then an unknown amateur) were near perfect casting, as was Thora Hird. Unfortunately, I do not feel the other principals were so well cast, not that they weren't up to the job - quite the opposite. However,having been introduced to the book in 1967 - as part of day-release - by a student teacher with the longest legs in the universe and who would not have looked out of place on the screen herself,and reading it on average once every eighteen months I envisage them differently. Vic's new brother-in-law is a teacher and ex-serviceman, on the film he is portrayed as a balding, bespectacled, over-studious type not your average desert rat at all. Vic's dad is shown as a railwayman, and quite small at that, whereas in the book he is a miner and the description gives the impression of a strapping middle-aged man with a bit of presence, can we have been so short of coal in 62 that we were afraid all colliers would down tools at being shown on film as rough and ready?
These minor carps apart, I cannot fault the film at all, other than it was made in Lancashire, why? I can remember most West Riding mill towns, as is Cressley, were just as mucky as the one on the film - Bolton I believe - correct me please if I am in error.
I cannot recommend this film enough, or the book, if only for the memories of those exquisite legs.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Early 60s spot on.
Comment: Believe me, this might as well be an early 60s documentary. Just the way it was for plenty of Vic's and Ingrid's, including staying with the mother in law. Incidently, Thora Hird wasn't the worst. A sort of semi-staid Britain just before the Beatles exploded on the scene. Great acting all round. From the script to the decor, clothing and shortage of cars on the road, it's just the way it was. No features or trailer, who cares. If you want to time travel back to early 60s UK and be a fly on the wall in almost any home.

Customer Rating:

Summary: British Film Making At Its Best
Comment: Adapted from a famous Stan Barstow novel the story evolves around Vic Brown's relationship with Ingrid Rothwell, a typist who works at the same place. When Ingrid falls pregnant, Vic is obliged to marry her and his life is turned upside down when he comes up against the mother-in-law from Hell wonderfully portrayed by Thora Hird. This is a fine example of British movie making and is worth seeing for the performances by Alan Bates; June Ritchie and of course, Thora Hird. Controversial at the time since it shows a partially nude June Ritchie which was taboo at the time, it looks dated now. But one cannot deny it was a fine achievement for its time. Good picture and sound make the DVD version a good buy. Shame there are no other features available; a trailer would have been nice.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Classic
Comment: The DVD for this film is not exceptional; no commentary, no featurette, no features at all actually(not even subtitles, and I don't count the aspect ratio as a feature).
The plus point here is that this film is exceptional. This was John Schlesinger's feature film directorial debut, and one of Alan Bates finest performances.
One might say that this was hardly a ground-breaking film, following "Room at the Top" and "Saturday Night & Sunday Morning", but this film follows in that vein so well. The disc isn't groundbreaking, though for a film from 1962 it was hardly expected to have an assortment of special features, but the transfer is rather pleasing and the sound is really quite good.
This disc is worth buying for the film alone, which in my opinion is one of the finest films made, besides, in the end you buy a DVD for the film, not the features on the disc.
I recommend that you do what I did, buy this and enjoy it, there really aren't many finer films out there.

More Reviews

Editorial Reviews:

Pity poor Vic (Alan Bates): when he begins a relationship with Ingrid (June Ritchie), a typist at the Lancashire factory where he works as a draughtsman; his life comes apart at the seams. Ingrid's gossiping, malicious friends are bad enough, but her mother Mrs Rothwell (the terrifying Thora Hird) is something else. Vic has to marry Ingrid-she's pregnant--and the only place for them to stay is chez Rothwell.

There's a tenderness about A Kind of Loving which you don't find in the more abrasive "kitchen sink" films of the 60s. Vic is not a rebel like Arthur Seton in Saturday Night, Sunday Morning or a macho lunk like Richard Harris' rugby-league player in This Sporting Life. He's a likable, easygoing youngster who soon discovers that real-life love affairs are infinitely messier than he and his mates could ever have imagined. The acute, witty screenplay, adapted by Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse from Stan Barstow's novel, shows how limited Vic and Ingrid's choices really are. They have no privacy or independence. Bounced into a marriage that neither necessarily wants, their romance quickly sours. Mrs Rothwell is truly the mother-in-law from Hell--a busybody and a tyrant. Look out for the Queen Victoria-like expression on her face when a drunken Vic throws up in her front room. Debut-feature director John Schlesinger captures the humour and the pathos in the young lovers' plight without ever making fun of them. --Geoffrey Macnab