Movie movement starts to run out of steam

The next film on offer from The New Wave producers was a box office disappointment.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), starring newcomer Tom Courtenay in a remarkable screen debut as Colin Smith, an antiestablishment rebel who is sent to a Borstal institution for his part in a bakery robbery. The sport of running is an escape from the reality of his life as a member of the working class poor, he lives in the lower class district of Nottingham in a Prefab with his mum and three siblings.

His father dies as a result of a terminal illness caused by years of toil in a factory. The Borstal governor (Michael Redgrave) sees Smith as a potential contender to win the cup in a running event between the Borstal and a public school.

The lad appears to be playing the game, up until the end of the film when he deliberately loses the race.

Directed by Tony Richardson, the film was a commercial failure. One explanation might be that audience tastes were changing; this was the era of the beginning of the James Bond film and moviegoers were perhaps looking for a more exciting and thrilling fantasy concept in films to escape the reality of the kitchen sink drama.

However, another New Wave picture also released in 1962 was a box office smash; the story of newlyweds Alan Bates and June Ritchie, who discover that married life is not all that it seems.

A Kind Of Loving, directed by John Schlesinger from a Stan Barstow novel, with a budget of £165,000 earned a profit of £450,000.

The social reality created by the talents of writers, producers, directors and talented actors all flying the kite for New Wave cinema represented a significant breakthrough in British filmmaking, changing it forever.