This Sporting Life
Encyclopedia
This Sporting Life is a 1963 British film
based on a novel of the same name by David Storey
which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. It tells the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield
, a mining area of Yorkshire
, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life. Storey, the author, a former professional rugby league footballer, also adapted the script.
The film stars Richard Harris
, Rachel Roberts, William Hartnell
and Alan Badel
. It was adapted by David Storey
from his novel and directed by Lindsay Anderson
, and is considered to be one of the last major films of the British New Wave
or "Free Cinema
" movement. The film was Richard Harris' first starring role, and won him a Best Actor Award
at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival
. He was also nominated for an Oscar
for Best Actor in a Leading Role
. Rachel Roberts won another BAFTA award (her first was for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
) and an Oscar nomination for best actress
. Harris was nominated for the BAFTA that year but was topped by Dirk Bogarde
for his role in the Joseph Losey
production The Servant.
, the film concerns a bitter young Yorkshire
coal miner, Frank Machin (Harris). Following a nightclub altercation in which he takes on the captain of the local rugby league club and smacks a couple of the others, he is recruited by the team's manager, who sees profit in his aggressive streak.
Although somewhat initially uncoordinated at league, he impresses the team's owner, Gerald Weaver (Badel), with his spirit and brutality of his playing style during the trial. He is signed up to the top team as a loose forward (number 13) and impresses all with his aggressive forward play. He often punches or elbows the opposition players throughout the game.
Off the field, Frank is much less successful. His recently widowed landlady, Mrs Margaret Hammond (Roberts), a mother of two young children, lost her husband in an accident at Weaver's engineering firm, but gained no compensation because it was ruled to have been a suicide
. He uses her for sex, but in her grief she cannot return any affection; she finds his lack of social graces, for instance, at a smart restaurant, somewhat off-putting, and he is violent towards her. He leaves after a row over her late husband, Weaver and his predatory wife. He rejects the latter's advances and treats her as a commodity, to be used and discarded. Intending a reconciliation, he finds that Margaret is in hospital. She is unconscious, having suffered a brain haemorrhage shortly after their split; she soon dies without regaining consciousness. In the end he is seen as "just a great ape on a football field", vulnerable to the ravages of time and injury.
(1953), one of numerous documentaries he had made in the previous decade. The project had first been discussed by the Rank Organisation
as a possible project for Joseph Losey
, the exiled American film maker known for his long collaboration with writer Harold Pinter
, and then was passed to Karel Reisz
who, reluctant to direct another film on a Northern England
subject so soon after Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
(1960), passed it to his friend, Lindsay Anderson. Anderson accepted and Reisz produced.
Notable among the supporting cast is William Hartnell
, who would soon gain national fame as the First Doctor
on Doctor Who
. It was his role in This Sporting Life which brought Hartnell to the attention of the first Doctor Who producer Verity Lambert
. It also featured the future Dad's Army
star, Arthur Lowe
, who also appeared in four later films directed by Anderson.
's stadium, Belle Vue
and at Halifax
's then stadium Thrum Hall
. The scene where Frank (Richard Harris
) leaps from a bus to buy a newspaper, then leaps back on the bus was filmed at the top of Westgate, Wakefield. The location is still instantly recognisable today and has changed very little apart from the addition of small bars and clubs. The houses used for the outdoor scenes in This Sporting Life were actually filmed in Servia Terrace in Leeds
. The canteen van was parked in Servia Grove.
has characterized the editing of A Sporting Life as follows:
A specific description of the editing has been given in the 2001 book by Don Fairservice:
, the film was well received. Variety
praised its "gutsy vitality", and praised the production of Reisz and the directorial feature début of Anderson, who "brings the keen, observant eye of a documentary man to many vivid episodes without sacrificing the story line."
John Russell Taylor
in 1980 thought it a mistake to link This Sporting Life with the 'kitchen sink' films released in the preceding few years, because its "emotionalism" made it "unique", apart from Anderson's other work:
On January 22, 2008, the film received a Region 1 DVD release from The Criterion Collection
.
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
based on a novel of the same name by David Storey
David Storey
David Rhames Storey is an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player....
which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. It tells the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
, a mining area of Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life. Storey, the author, a former professional rugby league footballer, also adapted the script.
The film stars Richard Harris
Richard Harris
Richard St John Harris was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer....
, Rachel Roberts, William Hartnell
William Hartnell
William Henry Hartnell was an English actor. During 1963-66, he was the first actor to play the Doctor in the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Early life:...
and Alan Badel
Alan Badel
Alan Fernand Badel was a distinguished English stage actor who also appeared frequently in the cinema, radio and television and was noted for his richly textured voice which was once described as "the sound of tears".-Early life:...
. It was adapted by David Storey
David Storey
David Rhames Storey is an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player....
from his novel and directed by Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
, and is considered to be one of the last major films of the British New Wave
British New Wave
The British New Wave is the name given to a trend in filmmaking among directors in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The label is a translation of Nouvelle Vague, the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others.There is considerable overlap...
or "Free Cinema
Free Cinema
Free Cinema was a documentary film movement that emerged in England in the mid-1950s. The term referred to an absence of propagandised intent or deliberate box office appeal. Co-founded by Lindsay Anderson, though he later disdained the 'movement' tag, with Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson and Lorenza...
" movement. The film was Richard Harris' first starring role, and won him a Best Actor Award
Best Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival)
The Best Actor Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946.- Award Winners :-External links:* * ....
at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival
1963 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Armand Salacrou *Rouben Mamoulian *Jacqueline Audry *Wilfrid Baumgartner *François Chavane *Jean De Baroncelli *Robert Hossein...
. He was also nominated for an Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. Rachel Roberts won another BAFTA award (her first was for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (film)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 British film. It is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe. Sillitoe wrote the screenplay adaptation and the film was directed by Karel Reisz.-Synopsis:...
) and an Oscar nomination for best actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. Harris was nominated for the BAFTA that year but was topped by Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
for his role in the Joseph Losey
Joseph Losey
Joseph Walton Losey was an American theater and film director. After studying in Germany with Bertolt Brecht, Losey returned to the United States, eventually making his way to Hollywood...
production The Servant.
Plot
Filmed in WakefieldWakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
, the film concerns a bitter young Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
coal miner, Frank Machin (Harris). Following a nightclub altercation in which he takes on the captain of the local rugby league club and smacks a couple of the others, he is recruited by the team's manager, who sees profit in his aggressive streak.
Although somewhat initially uncoordinated at league, he impresses the team's owner, Gerald Weaver (Badel), with his spirit and brutality of his playing style during the trial. He is signed up to the top team as a loose forward (number 13) and impresses all with his aggressive forward play. He often punches or elbows the opposition players throughout the game.
Off the field, Frank is much less successful. His recently widowed landlady, Mrs Margaret Hammond (Roberts), a mother of two young children, lost her husband in an accident at Weaver's engineering firm, but gained no compensation because it was ruled to have been a suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. He uses her for sex, but in her grief she cannot return any affection; she finds his lack of social graces, for instance, at a smart restaurant, somewhat off-putting, and he is violent towards her. He leaves after a row over her late husband, Weaver and his predatory wife. He rejects the latter's advances and treats her as a commodity, to be used and discarded. Intending a reconciliation, he finds that Margaret is in hospital. She is unconscious, having suffered a brain haemorrhage shortly after their split; she soon dies without regaining consciousness. In the end he is seen as "just a great ape on a football field", vulnerable to the ravages of time and injury.
Cast
- Richard HarrisRichard HarrisRichard St John Harris was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer....
as Frank Machin - Rachel Roberts as Margaret Hammond
- Alan BadelAlan BadelAlan Fernand Badel was a distinguished English stage actor who also appeared frequently in the cinema, radio and television and was noted for his richly textured voice which was once described as "the sound of tears".-Early life:...
as Gerald Weaver - William HartnellWilliam HartnellWilliam Henry Hartnell was an English actor. During 1963-66, he was the first actor to play the Doctor in the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Early life:...
as 'Dad' Johnson - Colin BlakelyColin BlakelyColin George Blakely was a Northern Irish character actor. He was considered an actor of great range.-Early life:...
as Maurice Braithwaite - Vanda GodsellVanda GodsellVanda Godsell was an English actress.-Early life:She was born near Bristol into the well known Godsell family, best known for its brewery based in Stroud. Her father was an officer in the Navy and served in the Battle of Jutland whilst her mother, Muriel, was the sister of novelist and actress...
as Mrs. Anne Weaver - Anne Cunningham as Judith
- Jack WatsonJack Watson (actor)Jack Watson , was an English actor who appeared in many British films and television dramas from the 1950s onwards....
as Len Miller - Arthur LoweArthur LoweArthur Lowe was a BAFTA Award winning English actor. He was best known for playing Captain George Mainwaring in the popular British sitcom Dad's Army from 1968 until 1977.-Early life:...
as Charles Slomer - Harry Markham as Wade
- George SewellGeorge SewellGeorge Sewell was an English actor.-Early life and early career:The son of a Hoxton printer and a florist; Sewell left school at age 14 and worked briefly in the printing trade before switching to building work, specifically the repair of bomb-damaged houses...
as Jeff - Leonard RossiterLeonard RossiterLeonard Rossiter was an English actor known for his roles as Rupert Rigsby, in the British comedy television series Rising Damp , and Reginald Iolanthe Perrin, in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin...
as Phillips, Sports writer - Peter Duguid as Doctor
- Wallas EatonWallas EatonWallas Eaton , sometimes credited as Wallace Eaton or Wallis Eaton, was an English film, radio, television and theatre actor....
as Waiter - Anthony Woodruff as Tom, Head waiter
- Tom Clegg as Gower
- Ken TraillKen TraillKen Traill was an English professional rugby league footballer of the 1940s and '50s, and coach of the 1950s, '60s and 70s who at representative level has played for Great Britain, England, and Yorkshire, and at club level for Hunslet, Bradford Northern, Halifax, and Wakefield Trinity, playing at...
as the Trainer - Frank WindsorFrank WindsorFrank Windsor is an English actor, mainly on television.He attended Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall. He began his career on radio and made an appearance in a 1953 film of Henry V...
as the Dentist
Production
This was Anderson's first feature film as director, although he had won an Oscar for his short documentary, Thursday's ChildrenThursday's Children
Thursday's Children is a 1954 short documentary film directed by Lindsay Anderson about The Royal School for the Deaf in Margate, Kent, UK. It won an Academy Award in 1955 for Documentary Short Subject....
(1953), one of numerous documentaries he had made in the previous decade. The project had first been discussed by the Rank Organisation
Rank Organisation
The Rank Organisation was a British entertainment company formed during 1937 and absorbed in 1996 by The Rank Group Plc. It was the largest and most vertically-integrated film company in Britain, owning production, distribution and exhibition facilities....
as a possible project for Joseph Losey
Joseph Losey
Joseph Walton Losey was an American theater and film director. After studying in Germany with Bertolt Brecht, Losey returned to the United States, eventually making his way to Hollywood...
, the exiled American film maker known for his long collaboration with writer Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
, and then was passed to Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
who, reluctant to direct another film on a Northern England
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
subject so soon after Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (film)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 British film. It is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe. Sillitoe wrote the screenplay adaptation and the film was directed by Karel Reisz.-Synopsis:...
(1960), passed it to his friend, Lindsay Anderson. Anderson accepted and Reisz produced.
Notable among the supporting cast is William Hartnell
William Hartnell
William Henry Hartnell was an English actor. During 1963-66, he was the first actor to play the Doctor in the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Early life:...
, who would soon gain national fame as the First Doctor
First Doctor
The First Doctor is the initial incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor William Hartnell from 1963 to 1966. Hartnell reprised the role in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors in 1973 - albeit in a...
on Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
. It was his role in This Sporting Life which brought Hartnell to the attention of the first Doctor Who producer Verity Lambert
Verity Lambert
Verity Ann Lambert, OBE was an English television and film producer. She is best known as the founding producer of the science-fiction series Doctor Who, a programme which has become a part of British popular culture, and for her association with Thames Television...
. It also featured the future Dad's Army
Dad's Army
Dad's Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977. The series ran for 9 series and 80 episodes in total, plus a radio series, a feature film and a stage show...
star, Arthur Lowe
Arthur Lowe
Arthur Lowe was a BAFTA Award winning English actor. He was best known for playing Captain George Mainwaring in the popular British sitcom Dad's Army from 1968 until 1977.-Early life:...
, who also appeared in four later films directed by Anderson.
Filming locations
Many of the scenes in This Sporting Life were filmed at Wakefield TrinityWakefield Trinity Wildcats
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats are a professional rugby league club that plays in the European Super League and is based in Wakefield. They achieved promotion in 1999 and have remained in the League since. They are known to their fans as Wakey, Trinity, Wildcats, or historically The Dreadnoughts...
's stadium, Belle Vue
Belle Vue (Wakefield)
Belle Vue is a rugby league stadium in Wakefield, England. It is the home stadium of Wakefield Trinity Wildcats. It is located beside the A638 Doncaster Road, approximately one mile south of Wakefield City Centre.- Description :Currently, the East stand has a covered stand with seating, with some...
and at Halifax
Halifax RLFC
Halifax RLFC is one of the most historic rugby league clubs in the game, formed over a century ago, in 1873 in the Yorkshire town of Halifax. Known as 'Fax', the official club colours are blue and white hoops, blue shorts and blue socks . They share The Shay stadium with football club FC Halifax Town...
's then stadium Thrum Hall
Thrum Hall
Thrum Hall was a rugby league stadium on Hanson Lane in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was the home of Halifax RLFC.-Stadium:The site, measuring 55,000 square yards and included a cricket pitch, greyhound track and bowling greens...
. The scene where Frank (Richard Harris
Richard Harris
Richard St John Harris was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer....
) leaps from a bus to buy a newspaper, then leaps back on the bus was filmed at the top of Westgate, Wakefield. The location is still instantly recognisable today and has changed very little apart from the addition of small bars and clubs. The houses used for the outdoor scenes in This Sporting Life were actually filmed in Servia Terrace in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
. The canteen van was parked in Servia Grove.
Editing
Anthony SlomanAnthony Sloman
Anthony Barney Sloman is an English broadcaster, film critic, film director, film editor, film producer, lecturer, production manager, screenwriter, sound editor and actor....
has characterized the editing of A Sporting Life as follows:
A specific description of the editing has been given in the 2001 book by Don Fairservice:
Lindsay Anderson on directing Richard Harris
Anderson, who often developed unrequited feelings for unobtainable heterosexual men, wrote in his diary on 23 April 1962, after the first month or so of production: "the most striking feature of it all, I suppose, has been the splendour and misery of my work and relationship with Richard." He felt that Harris was acting better than ever before in his career, but feared his feelings for Harris, whose combination of physicality, affection and cruelty fascinated him, meant that he lacked detachment he needed as a director. "I ought to be calm and detached with him. Instead I am impulsive, affectionate, infinitely susceptible."Critical reception
Though on first release the film was lauded by critics, it was a commercial disaster with the home audiences and the critics, and prompted John Davis, the head of the Rank Organisation to announce that he was pulling out of British New Wave, "kitchen sink" drama, nor would his company make such a "squalid" film again. In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the film was well received. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
praised its "gutsy vitality", and praised the production of Reisz and the directorial feature début of Anderson, who "brings the keen, observant eye of a documentary man to many vivid episodes without sacrificing the story line."
John Russell Taylor
John Russell Taylor
John Russell Taylor is an English critic and author. He is the author of critical studies of British theatre; of critical biographies of such important figures in Anglo-American film as Alfred Hitchcock, Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh, and Ingrid Bergman; of Strangers in Paradise: The...
in 1980 thought it a mistake to link This Sporting Life with the 'kitchen sink' films released in the preceding few years, because its "emotionalism" made it "unique", apart from Anderson's other work:
"every scene in the film is charged with the passion of what is not said and done, as well as what is. ... Though real enough and believable enough, this kind of amour fou is remote indeed from what the staid middle classMiddle classThe middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
cinema would generally consider as realism."
On January 22, 2008, the film received a Region 1 DVD release from The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions...
.