This Sporting Life (1963)

Director:

Lindsay Anderson

Writers:

David Storey (novel)
David Storey (screenplay)

Release Date:

January 1963 (UK)

Genre:

Drama | Sport

Plot:

In Northern England in the early 1960s, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an...

Plot Keywords:

Nonlinear Timeline | Rags To Riches | Coal Miner | Yorkshire | Bentley

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 2 wins & 7 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Tue. May 20

3:00 AM

TCM

Cast

Richard Harris	...	Frank Machin
Rachel Roberts	...	Mrs. Margaret Hammond
Alan Badel	...	Gerald Weaver
William Hartnell	...	'Dad' Johnson
Colin Blakely	...	Maurice Braithwaite
Vanda Godsell	...	Mrs. Anne Weaver
Anne Cunningham	...	Judith
Jack Watson	...	Len Miller
Arthur Lowe	...	Charles Slomer
Harry Markham	...	Wade
George Sewell	...	Jeff
Leonard Rossiter	...	Phillips, Sports writer
Katherine Parr	...	Mrs. Farrer
Bernadette Benson	...	Lynda Hammond
Andrew Nolan	...	Ian Hammond

Runtime:

134 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 (video rating) | UK:AA (re-rating) (1970) | UK:X (original rating) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | West Germany:16 (bw)

Filming Locations:

Bolton Priory, Bolton Abbey, North Yorkshire, England, UK

Company:

Independent Artists

Trivia:

Because the budget would not stretch to the thousands needed for the rugby league match scenes at Belle Vue, director Lindsay Anderson deployed hundreds of wooden dummies to stand amongst the human extras for the crowd scenes.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 50 Films to See Before You Die (2006) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Here In My Heart

One of the Best of the "Kitchen Sink" Films

"This Sporting Life" is one of the most famous of the British "kitchen sink" dramas of the 1950s and 1960s ("kitchen sink" films were very gritty, social realist films which were very popular in Britain at one time).

Frank Machin (Richard Harris) is a brutal, young miner in a city in northern England. Hoping for fame and fortune, he becomes a successful Rugby League football player. He uses his fame and fortune, along with physical violence, to try to force his widowed landlady (Rachel Roberts) to fall for him.

Photographed in bleak black-and-white, the film's scenes of emotional and physical domestic violence are still shocking today. Also notable are the violent, stylishly-shot rugby matches.

The cast are brilliant without exception, especially Richard Harris who manages to invest even his totally unsympathetic character with some degree of humanity.