This Sporting Life (1963)
The northern kitchen sink celebration continued at the Rosen Multiplex with This Sporting Life which some film historians judge the epitome of the genre, others the end of it.
Most agree it was Richard Harris’ best performance as Frank Machin the troubled but brilliant rugby league player.
The director was Lindsay Andersen in his first such role, the producer Karel Reisz and the script by David Storey adapted from his own novel.
Although bold for its times with more than hints of homo-eroticism, nudity, sex and a passionate relationship between Machin and his widowed lodger Margaret Hammond (Rachel Roberts), nearly 60 years on these issues look dated.
So you have to judge the film on its merits. It has too many flashbacks and one of them, reprised several times, is of Machin woozy after a dental procedure. It’s not always easy to follow.
The film does have attractions and appeal in some ways notably the performance of Richard Harris.
As a youth in Limerick he might have become a professional rugby player but for a bout of tuberculosis.
So he looks the part which he plays in the Marlon Brando mould, chewing gum, always troubled, lacking direction.
The central relationship is between him and Margaret Hammond.
He is frustrated as he cannot please her, though does better with her two children, and she despises him calling him an ‘ape’. This leads to perpetual rows.
The film is also a fine depiction of a northern rugby league club with its petty directors, bonding of players and small town life of pubs and dance hall.
Aside from Harris and Roberts, there is a strong cast many of whom made their name in television – Frank Windsor and Colin Blakely in Z Cars, Arthur Lowe in Dad’s Army and William Hartnell in Dr. Who.
The best performance of all was by that fine actor of stage and film Alan Badel as the rich but sexually-ambiguous Weaver, the local factory owner and chairman of the rugby league club.
For an actor of limited talent, more interested in cavorting, Richard Harris had a successful career and made a pile of money.
His 1968 hit song MacArthur Park was number one for ages.
See here – MACARTHUR PARK
Oddly enough Macarthur Park – a song about a cake left out in the rain was the B-side of the single Didn’t We and played by a San Francisco DJ in error. The rest as they say is history.
Harris also bought the rights to the musical Camelot and successfully toured America with it.
In his final days he used the Savoy as a hospice where he startled habitues of the American Bar by being borne out in a stretcher and imploring them “Don’t order the fish …”
Rachel Roberts fared less well. She was one of Rex Harrison’s eight wives and took her own life in 1980.
As to northern kitchen kitchen sink, it died when the focus moved south with the Swinging Sixties.
Michael Caine and Terence Stamp became more famous and bigger box office than Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney, The Rolling Stones and the Who as famous as the Beatles and in their different fields Bobby Moore and David Bailey achieved great success.
Mary Quant invented the mini skirt and Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy became international models.
Julie Christie who starred in Billy Liar however was to become the face of the sixties.
