On its surface, This Sporting Life could be said to belong to the sport's film genre, but it elevates that notion into the realms of profound psychological study and a powerful sociological backdrop. Although the film was a part of the "angry young man" cinema of the late fifties and early sixties (see Room at the Top (1959), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), A Taste of Honey (1961), and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)), it is less doctrinaire than other films of the group, subordinating social-realist material to the personal drama. For a debut film, this one was quite special and propelled Lindsay Anderson into the stature of a young director on the rise.

Historical Background: Lindsay Anderson was born in Bangalore, India, on April 17th, 1923, the son of a Scottish major general. Anderson was educated in Oxford and became a film critic, co-founding the once influential film magazine, Sequence. Anderson was on the vanguard of the British New Wave that advocated radical changes in British filmmaking. He helped to organize the Free Cinema movement in the mid-fifties, along with Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, and Gavin Lambert. That group of innovators promoted a documentary film style with subject matter more relevant to working class and middleclass people. Later, the precepts of this group spilled over into the domain of feature films, giving rise to so-called "kitchen sink cinema." This Sporting Life (1963) was Anderson's feature debut and Karel Reisz served as film producer. Anderson followed his successful debut with a couple of less substantial efforts, but later rebounded with the outstanding If… (1968), which won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. Anderson went on to make such films as O Lucky Man! (1973), Hospital (1982), and The Whales of August (1987). Anderson died in 1994.

The Story: When rugby star Frank Machin gets six teeth jarred loose by a shot to the face, the dentist puts him under with nitrous oxide while he removes the dental slivers. Under anesthesia, Machin's mind is awash in recollections of how he got into the rugby league as well as the early days of his developing relationship with his landlady, Mrs. Hammond (Rachel Roberts). We see these reminiscences via flashback.

We learn that Frank Machin (Richard Harris) worked in a coalmine in Yorkshire, operating a drill. He's a tough, rugged sort and very talented at rugby. He had scratched his way out of poverty and his working class roots through sports. A local scout named Johnson (William Hartnell), who Machin calls "Dad," had arranged for some scouts from the professional Rugby League to come watch him play. Frank had put on quite a display, that day, and was soon signed by a pair of wealthy co-owners, Mr. Weaver (Alan Badel) and Mr. Slomer (Arthur Lowe), to the "City" team. Machin demanded and got £1000 up-front and soon developed into one of the stars of the league. He had ultimately come to realize, however, that he was still just "an ape on the football field" to the upper class owners – a big ape performing for their entertainment.

One of Machin's reasons for craving success was because he had fallen in love with Mrs. Hammond – Margaret. Margaret is a widow with two young children, Lynda (Bernadette Benson) and Ian (Andrew Nolan). Margaret's husband died in an accident at his lathe. Possibly it had been a suicide or, if not, extreme carelessness. Margaret is deeply scarred by her husband's death, maintaining very nearly a shrine to his memory in her household, in the form of photographs on the wall and his freshly polished work boots set out by the hearth. She had been forced to take in a border – Frank – to make ends meet. The desperately lonely Frank gets on well with the two children and falls hopelessly in love with the embittered widow. She, however, is too depressed and traumatized to be able or willing to accept his love or to offer hers to him. She's miserable but is simply too depressed to let go of her misery and move on. Frank tries to overcome her resistance using the same sheer force of will by which he had succeeded at rugby, but the more desperately he tries to get her to accept his love, the more she recoils. Frank wants to be the irresistible force that draws her out of her pain, but Margaret proves to be unmovable in her withdrawal.

As Machin's sports success increases, he spends lavishly, much of it with the intent of impressing or pleasing Margaret and making her life a bit easier. He takes Margaret and the children for a ride in the country in his magnificent white Bentley motorcar. The kids enjoy themselves immensely and even Margaret smiles once or twice. He buys her a fancy dress and a cashmere coat, but when her neighbors she her with these luxuries, she feels like a kept woman. Since she can't genuinely love Frank, accepting his gifts feels to her like prostitution. Though she gives herself to him sexually on a couple of occasions, she withholds her heart. It is her love that Frank desperately needs, not her body. When Frank watches his best friend, Maurice Braithwaite (Colin Blakely) marry his girlfriend Judith (Anne Cunningham), Frank wonders why he and Margaret can't find that simple happiness as well.

Frank's professional success comes from brutish exertion, but no amount of exertion, brutish or otherwise, in his relationship with Margaret can penetrate her defensive shell. Her cold embrace freezes his soul. Though Machin is a star, with young women and even the wealthy and attractive Mrs. Weaver (Vanda Godsell) throwing themselves at him, he remains obsessed with Margaret. How the story plays out you'll have to discover for yourself, but I'll warn you that neither the author nor the director have made any concession in the direction of Hollywood-style happy endings.

Themes: The issues of this film include both psychological/interpersonal ones and the social consciousness typical of the kitchen sink era. The social theme is relatively straightforward. Frank is a victim of the rigidly vertical class system that continued to persist in the decades following World War II. Struggle as he might to achieve stardom and financial success, his feet remain cast in the cement of his lower class background. He's too rough and vulgar to be accepted into the upper echelons of British society, no matter what success he might have, but the swagger with which he tries to better his lot marks him as one of the angry young men. Frank's effort to improve his circumstances can be viewed as presaging the rapid rise and expansion of the middleclass in Britain that would soon substantially alter British society. Margaret is also a victim of her lower class status, especially because she received no compensation after her husband's industrial accident.

The psychological struggle between Margaret and Frank is more difficult to define precisely, which is part of the beauty of this film. It presents the two central characters with a complexity that defies easy analysis. Their relationship is a lot like a rugby scrum, like two impassioned tarantulas locked in a vicious embrace, each futilely trying to push the relationship in a direction more compatible with their own needs. One desperately needs the other's love; one is so pained from a love already lost as to be incapable of daring to love again.

Production Values: The screenplay for this film was written by David Storey, based on his own novel. It's a brilliant script, with credible, three-dimensional characters that viewers can almost touch and feel. The device of a series of flashbacks during Frank's dental anesthesia works effectively and persists through roughly the first three-quarters of the film, before the story moves into present time for its dramatic climax. Like other films of the kitchen sink movement, this one features detailed realism, right down to the daily chores in which Margaret is almost constantly engaged. This film adds to the social realism a psychological realism that few other films achieve. The intensity and complexity of the relationship between Frank and Margaret is reminiscent of Tennessee Williams's great play, A Streetcar Named Desire. Storey and Anderson find a way to explore these lead characters to the very depth of their souls.

The somber black-and-white photography for this film is ideally suited to the bleak, industrial environment, squalid flats, and muddy rugby fields. The film proceeds at a brisk past, partly because of Anderson's skillful use of montage editing. There's also some memorable use of symbolism, such as a spider that embodies death in one key scene. Anderson is a director, however, who does not use flashy gimmicks for their own sake. His choices as a filmmaker are always designed to advance the essential artistic qualities of the film. The soundtrack by Roberto Gerhard is eerie and distinctly avant garde. Anderson was not fully satisfied with Gerhard's work but I found it pretty effective.

Richard Harris cited his performance in this film as the best of his career. I haven't seen enough of his work to validate that judgment, but if anything he ever did was better than this, it would have to be utterly amazing. In 1963, Harris, an Irish actor, had both the look and the charisma of a young Marlon Brando. Harris looks every bit like a rugby player, with a massive jaw, muscular body, and a slightly dented nose. Harris had actually played rugby before he came down with tuberculosis at age nineteen. Where Harris most shines, however, is in the intimate scenes opposite Margaret as they struggle with their opposing needs. Harris appeared elsewhere in The Guns of Navarone (1961), Red Desert (1964), Juggernaut (1974), Robin and Marion (1976), Unforgiven (1992), Patriot Games (1992), Gladiator (2000), and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001).

Rachel Roberts is likewise brilliant and powerful. Her character is emotionally repressed even more than sexually, but Roberts nevertheless succeeds in revealing all of Margeret's inner turmoil. Roberts appeared three years earlier in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and went on to roles in O Lucky Man! (1973), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), and Simone (2002). Both Harris and Roberts were nominated for Oscars for their work in this film. There are some strong supporting performances from Colin Blakely, Alan Badel, Vanda Godsell, and, especially, William Hartnell, as the aging scout.

Bottom-Line: This film takes a profoundly poetic view of both human relationships and industrial northern England. The emotional struggle between Frank and Margaret is as intense as any you'll find in film. My copy of this film is VHS. The film's running time is 129 minutes. I highly recommend this film for viewers who enjoy intense psychological drama. If you're into films or plays like A Streetcar Named Desire, you should be duly moved by the great performances and script for Lindsay Anderson's debut film, This Sporting Life. The British Film Institute ranks this film as the fifty-second best British film of all-time.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older