The British New Wave
In just four years, 11 films changed the face of British cinema for good
Farewell to French doors… The term ‘kitchen sink’ was inspired by a picture of one painted by the artist John Bratby. The familiar set of an elegant drawing-room with French doors was replaced by an untidy rented room with an ironing board
For cinemagoers accustomed to Ealing comedies and frothy romances such as Maytime in Mayfair, the gritty realism of films like A Taste of Honey must have been a shock. Instead of suave Michael Wilding flirting with glamorous Anna Neagle, they were given plain little Rita Tushingham, alone and pregnant after a brief fling with a black sailor.
A Taste of Honey was one of 11 films that became known as the British New Wave or Free Cinema, inspired by the anti-establishment stance of writers such as Alan Sillitoe and John Osborne. Labelled ‘angry young men’, they refused to view Fifties’ Britain through rose-tinted spectacles. Instead they focused on the unsung lives of working people, trapped in the drudgery of factory work, kept in their place by a rigid class system as well as the moral hypocrisy of the time. Directors such as Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson deplored the ‘them and us’ mentality which meant that lower-class characters were seen as little more than comic relief from the main theme of a film.
They formed the concept of Free Cinema which they defined in these words: “Implicit in our attitude is a belief in freedom, in the importance of people and in the significance of the every day.” More succinctly, the critics coined the phrase ‘kitchen sink drama’. The films that they and like-minded directors made between 1959 and 1963 are a fascinating snapshot of a society that was in transition from post-war austerity to the hedonism of the Sixties. As well as bringing fresh talent to the screen with actors such as Albert Finney, Rita Tushingham and Tom Courtenay, their output was a deliberate departure from the middleclass good taste and stiff upper lip ethos audiences had come to expect.
GRIM UP NORTH
“I hate studios,” Tony Richardson said in an interview, and a glance at the locations used for New Wave films such as Room at the Top (Halifax and Bradford) and
The Entertainer (Morecambe) says it all. These films were all about the industrial cities of the Midlands and the North and people who lived in rows of backto-back houses, not the carefree ‘green and pleasant land’ of films such as The Titfield Thunderbolt. A new generation of actors spoke in their own regional accents rather than the Queen’s English they had learned at RADA. In his memoir, Dear Tom, Tom Courtenay wrote that he never made much of his poverty-stricken childhood in Hull, but it proved to be an unexpected asset: “Of course my early fame as an actor was due in some measure to my background. It is hardly surprising that young actors such as Albert [Finney] and myself should be the ones to benefit from the leading parts that suddenly appeared. With our lowly social backgrounds we were excellent casting for what was being written.”
Along with Alan Bates, Richard Burton and Laurence Harvey, they played men at odds with society – resentful of the old order but unable to shake themselves free. In Room at the Top, Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) claims he is ‘working class and proud of it’, but he is ambitious and plans to climb the social ladder by marrying the boss’s daughter – if only he wasn’t distracted by the charms of an older woman (Simone Signoret)…
In Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Arthur Seaton is determined never to be distracted from his one ambition, which is to have a good time and live life by his own rules. Powerfully played by Albert Finney, his advice to his fellow workers is: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”.
The disastrous consequences of an unwanted pregnancy are a recurring theme in New Wave films and when Arthur learns that his married girlfriend, Brenda, is pregnant he turns for help to his aunt (Hylda Baker). Hoping to avoid the last resort of a backstreet abortion, Brenda (Rachel Roberts) spends several hours in a hot bath drinking a pint of gin under the disapproving eye of Aunt Ada.
BEFORE THE PILL
Before the Pill was available, the shame of being an unmarried mother was unthinkable. Jo in A Taste of Honey suffers the wrath of her mother (Dora Bryan), but she manages to keep her baby and her friend Geoff agrees to become its surrogate father.
But the times they were a-changing – perfectly conveyed by Julie Christie in Billy Liar. Strolling confidently down the street, swinging her handbag, she heralds the brave new world of the Sixties when Marie Stopes and Women’s Lib combined to release women from the shackles of previous generations.