Jimmy Porter (Richard Burton) lives with his demure wife Alison (Mary Ure) and business partner and friend Cliff in a tiny London flat. There is probably no one who can unleash a vicious, rapid-fire verbal attack as well as Richard Burton and that talent is on display here in his fulminations against his wife. A friend of Alison's, Helena, temporarily comes to stay in the already overcrowded space. Alison finally gets enough of the abuse and moves back to live with her wealthy parents and a relationship ensues between Jimmy and Helena. And a pregnancy is thrown in to complicate matters.
It is hard not to compare Jimmy in this melodrama to Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire." They are both brutes and treat their wives abysmally, but they have an animalistic appeal. Brando pulls this off better than Burton does here. It seems that Burton has a hard time reining in his bigger than life personality to play a working class person like Jimmy, who runs a candy stall in a London flea market. I mean, isn't it hard to picture Burton selling chocolates to small children for a living? And he plays his part like he is wanting to reach the folks in the back rows of a theater. All of this is not to say that it isn't a treat to see his performance - he was a great actor.
Trying to figure out the relationships between the four main characters is a task. Jimmy is indeed angry; the source of this anger seems to be that he is an educated man stuck in a dead-end job. Why he takes his anger out so brutally on his wife is hard to understand, and hard to watch. The mismatch in social status between him and his wife is an irritant, but is that enough for him to be so vicious? He is initially insulting to Helena, but that does not deter her from falling for him. On the other hand Jimmy treats his friend and coworkers quite civilly and goes out of his way to defend an Indian gentleman who is being discriminated against. But Jimmy's vulnerability and pain does leak out on occasion. I felt that I understood him best through his playing the trumpet. The solo he plays toward the end expresses such sadness, pain and despair that you feel you are getting to the core of the man. After the solo in the nightclub, the audience is stunned into silence.
I found the atmospheric black and white photography and editing to be impressive. There are many abrupt cuts from one scene to the next that at first I found discordant, but then I came to appreciate them - why linger on a scene when its essence has been established. And the quick cuts are consistent with, and help establish, the emotional tone.
This role for Burton could be considered a warm-up for his great performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." There he had a sparring partner in Elizabeth Taylor who could give back whatever he dished out.
It is hard not to compare Jimmy in this melodrama to Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire." They are both brutes and treat their wives abysmally, but they have an animalistic appeal. Brando pulls this off better than Burton does here. It seems that Burton has a hard time reining in his bigger than life personality to play a working class person like Jimmy, who runs a candy stall in a London flea market. I mean, isn't it hard to picture Burton selling chocolates to small children for a living? And he plays his part like he is wanting to reach the folks in the back rows of a theater. All of this is not to say that it isn't a treat to see his performance - he was a great actor.
Trying to figure out the relationships between the four main characters is a task. Jimmy is indeed angry; the source of this anger seems to be that he is an educated man stuck in a dead-end job. Why he takes his anger out so brutally on his wife is hard to understand, and hard to watch. The mismatch in social status between him and his wife is an irritant, but is that enough for him to be so vicious? He is initially insulting to Helena, but that does not deter her from falling for him. On the other hand Jimmy treats his friend and coworkers quite civilly and goes out of his way to defend an Indian gentleman who is being discriminated against. But Jimmy's vulnerability and pain does leak out on occasion. I felt that I understood him best through his playing the trumpet. The solo he plays toward the end expresses such sadness, pain and despair that you feel you are getting to the core of the man. After the solo in the nightclub, the audience is stunned into silence.
I found the atmospheric black and white photography and editing to be impressive. There are many abrupt cuts from one scene to the next that at first I found discordant, but then I came to appreciate them - why linger on a scene when its essence has been established. And the quick cuts are consistent with, and help establish, the emotional tone.
This role for Burton could be considered a warm-up for his great performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." There he had a sparring partner in Elizabeth Taylor who could give back whatever he dished out.