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A Taste of Honey (Tony Richardson, 1961)
This is a touching, kitchen-sink, coming-of-age/ugly duckling story decked out in jazzy undertones by director Richardson and music composer John Addison. Rita Tushingham is wonderful in her debut as Jo, the teenage Manchester school girl who's never felt love from her oversexed mom (Dora Bryan). When she is ditched by her mom and her mom's latest younger lover (Robert Stephens), Jo heads back home where she encounters her "sorta boyfriend", black sailor Jimmy (Paul Danquah), and the two make love. Jo's mom subsequently moves out of the home, and Jimmy's ship leaves Manchester.
Jo goes to work at a shoe store and gets her own flat, but pretty soon, she finds that she's pregnant. Geoffrey (Murray Melvin), the young man who buys her first pair of shoes sold, becomes her pal, and even after Jo learns he's gay and he learns that she's pregnant, Geoffrey moves in with her and helps her by cooking and cleaning around the house. Jo begins to wonder if she should keep her baby, but Geoffrey volunteers to be her child's father and stay with her. Eventually Jo's selfish mom turns up again to complicate matters.
The most memorable things about the film to me are Rita Tushingham's big eyes. She seems to be a soul who has much to offer but has never found any way to channel it to her satisfaction. Most all of the acting is first-rate, including Dora Bryan's hateful mother who takes up with and gets dumped by a new man every year. Murray Melvin is equally fine conveying both shyness and true humanity. The script by playwright Shelagh Delaney and Richardson is equal parts comedy and drama, while Richardson uses an impressionistic visual-and-cutting technique which can occasionally romanticize the drab Manchester setting. It certainly doesn't sentimentalize anything, but Addison's playful music does seem to make the harsh truths the film offers a little easier to take in. This is still one of the better British films of the early '60s.
This is a touching, kitchen-sink, coming-of-age/ugly duckling story decked out in jazzy undertones by director Richardson and music composer John Addison. Rita Tushingham is wonderful in her debut as Jo, the teenage Manchester school girl who's never felt love from her oversexed mom (Dora Bryan). When she is ditched by her mom and her mom's latest younger lover (Robert Stephens), Jo heads back home where she encounters her "sorta boyfriend", black sailor Jimmy (Paul Danquah), and the two make love. Jo's mom subsequently moves out of the home, and Jimmy's ship leaves Manchester.
Jo goes to work at a shoe store and gets her own flat, but pretty soon, she finds that she's pregnant. Geoffrey (Murray Melvin), the young man who buys her first pair of shoes sold, becomes her pal, and even after Jo learns he's gay and he learns that she's pregnant, Geoffrey moves in with her and helps her by cooking and cleaning around the house. Jo begins to wonder if she should keep her baby, but Geoffrey volunteers to be her child's father and stay with her. Eventually Jo's selfish mom turns up again to complicate matters.
The most memorable things about the film to me are Rita Tushingham's big eyes. She seems to be a soul who has much to offer but has never found any way to channel it to her satisfaction. Most all of the acting is first-rate, including Dora Bryan's hateful mother who takes up with and gets dumped by a new man every year. Murray Melvin is equally fine conveying both shyness and true humanity. The script by playwright Shelagh Delaney and Richardson is equal parts comedy and drama, while Richardson uses an impressionistic visual-and-cutting technique which can occasionally romanticize the drab Manchester setting. It certainly doesn't sentimentalize anything, but Addison's playful music does seem to make the harsh truths the film offers a little easier to take in. This is still one of the better British films of the early '60s.