Description: OscarÂ(r) nominee* Richard Burton delivers a passionate performance, and Mary Ure, ClaireBloom, Gary Raymond and Edith Evans give exciting stand-out portrayals (Los Angeles Times)in this powerful and engrossing motion picture (Cue) that bristles with brilliant dialogue (The Hollywood Reporter) and raw human emotion. Rage! His eyes blaze with it and his bodyseethes with it. Jimmy Porter is a man consumed by anger, and every moment he spends in the rank, suffocating squalor of the English factory town that entraps him, propels him closer and closer towards self-annihilation. But Jimmy's savage cruelty is not limited to himself. He also hurts the ones he lovesagain and again. And this time, he's about to commit an act so brutal, so destructive, that his wife Alison, her best friend Helena, and even Jimmy himself may not be able to survive! *Actor: The Robe (1953), Becket (1964), The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965), Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf (1966), Anne Of The Thousand Days (1969), Equus (1977); Supporting Actor: My Cousin Rachel (1952)
Amazon.com: Richard Burton was riding high in grandiose roles in Hollywood and on Broadway when he returned to Britain to portray trumpet-playing social dropout Jimmy Porter in Tony Richardson's adaptation of John Osborne's groundbreaking 1956 play. Burton's Jimmy works in a public market "sweet stall" where he rubs shoulders with the working class with a condescending air, while he takes out his contempt of bourgeois complacency at home on his spiritually whipped wife (a numb-looking Mary Ure) and her best friend (Claire Bloom). Burton is too old for the part of the self-loathing college grad, but his performance simmers with frustration and misdirected rage that masks the sad, vulnerable underside to his misanthropic swipes. The film became the opening volley in Britain's "New Cinema," a new wave of young directors, working-class themes, and social-realist style. --Sean Axmaker
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - awful
This film is full of problems. The first problem is that Richard Burton is horribly miscast as the lead. He is too old for the part, doesn't have the right speaking voice for the part and comes across ... Read More
Rating: - Look Back in Anger
Based on John Osborne's excoriating play, Tony Richardson's "Look Back in Anger" burst onto the screen in 1958 with piercing dialogue reflecting the stultifying state of the British lower classes. Richard ... Read More
Rating: - That's Acting
There are great performances by many great actors. but Burton's portrayal of Jimmy Porter is in a class by itself----even with a stellar supporting cast Burton is impossible to catch and even the audience ... Read More
Rating: - interesting but overrated
This is interesting as a period piece. The interest is not, however, in the somewhat untypical and sometimes unbelievable personalities portrayed, as in the streets, the houses, the clothes and some of the ... Read More
Rating: - Important to see
Despite strong acting on the part of all, I didn't think that the film adaptation was entirely successful, due to the script and direction. It remains a filmed play. Burton being always so angry doesn't ring ... Read More
- awful
- Look Back in Anger
- interesting but overrated
- Important to see