- Actors: Alan Bates, June Ritchie, Thora Hird, Bert Palmer, Pat Keen
- Directors: John Schlesinger
- Writers: Keith Waterhouse, Stan Barstow, Willis Hall
- Producers: Jack Hanbury, Joseph Janni
- Language English
- Classification: 15
- Studio: Warner
- VHS Release Date: 1 Oct 1999
- Run Time: 112 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004CJCR
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,063 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Pity poor Vic (Alan Bates): when he begins a relationship with Ingrid (June Ritchie), a typist at the Lancashire factory where he works as a draughtsman; his life comes apart at the seams. Ingrid's gossiping, malicious friends are bad enough, but her mother Mrs Rothwell (the terrifying Thora Hird) is something else. Vic has to marry Ingrid-she's pregnant--and the only place for them to stay is chez Rothwell.
There's a tenderness about A Kind of Loving which you don't find in the more abrasive "kitchen sink" films of the 60s. Vic is not a rebel like Arthur Seton in Saturday Night, Sunday Morning or a macho lunk like Richard Harris' rugby-league player in This Sporting Life. He's a likable, easygoing youngster who soon discovers that real-life love affairs are infinitely messier than he and his mates could ever have imagined. The acute, witty screenplay, adapted by Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse from Stan Barstow's novel, shows how limited Vic and Ingrid's choices really are. They have no privacy or independence. Bounced into a marriage that neither necessarily wants, their romance quickly sours. Mrs Rothwell is truly the mother-in-law from Hell--a busybody and a tyrant. Look out for the Queen Victoria-like expression on her face when a drunken Vic throws up in her front room. Debut-feature director John Schlesinger captures the humour and the pathos in the young lovers' plight without ever making fun of them. --Geoffrey Macnab
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
49 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
Adapted from a famous Stan Barstow novel the story evolves around Vic Brown's relationship with Ingrid Rothwell, a typist who works at the same place. When Ingrid falls pregnant, Vic is obliged to marry her and his life is turned upside down when he comes up against the mother-in-law from Hell wonderfully portrayed by Thora Hird. This is a fine example of British movie making and is worth seeing for the performances by Alan Bates; June Ritchie and of course, Thora Hird. Controversial at the time since it shows a partially nude June Ritchie which was taboo at the time, it looks dated now. But one cannot deny it was a fine achievement for its time. Good picture and sound make the DVD version a good buy. Shame there are no other features available; a trailer would have been nice.
33 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Believe me, this might as well be an early 60s documentary. Just the way it was for plenty of Vic's and Ingrid's, including staying with the mother in law. Incidently, Thora Hird wasn't the worst. A sort of semi-staid Britain just before the Beatles exploded on the scene. Great acting all round. From the script to the decor, clothing and shortage of cars on the road, it's just the way it was. No features or trailer, who cares. If you want to time travel back to early 60s UK and be a fly on the wall in almost any home.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
If your hair is just beginning to go grey at the edges, you will very likely join the ranks of those who feel nostalgic for their lost youth. This marvellous film from the very beginning of the 1960s is another example (with the even better 'Saturday Night & Sunday Morning' for example) of a Britain that has gone for ever. Although filmed in black & white, one really gets the feeling of a grim and gritty country where the austerity brought on by the war hasn't yet disappeared and where the streets are just as narrow as the ideas and opinions. It seems an age ago - steam trains, an almost empty hospital car park, young people riding on buses instead of having their own motorbike or cars. In just over 40 years, the nation's morality has been turned upside down: because of what people might say or think, a young man daren't go into a chemists' and ask a woman assistant for a packet of condoms. Unimaginable today. And as a result, as in the other film mentioned, a young woman becomes pregnant and the protagonists' lives are changed for ever. Here, there is no question of an abortion, of simply living together, of having a child out of wedlock - Vic Brown (Alan Bates) has to do the "right thing" and face the consequences of his act and marry the girl (June Ritchie). A family begins on the wrong foot and for all the wrong reasons and there is little chance that things will eventually turn out for the better, especially as the impoverished couple is forced to reside with the girl's fearsome mother, beautifully played as always by Thora Hird. Here, Vic is considered to be little more than a lodger, which makes the situation intolerable. They stay together even after the baby is lost as marriage in those days was 'a life sentence', for good or for bad. No question of just a quick divorce.
What is most striking in films such as this is not actually the way the country itself has changed physically but the way attitudes have evolved. Would today's younger generation be able to equate with this couple who seems worlds away from the present-day permissive society? Would they understand the narow-minded bigoted attitudes of this period which is only a generation away? A world where "right's right and wrong's wrong" as Vic's sister says, she who, in contrast, married happily for love at the beginning of the film. This is a world where it is alright to smoke anywhere in the house except for the bedroom. The couple finally decide to stay together, to give it a chance once away from the overbearing mother-in-law. As in SN&SM, it ends on a note of optimism for the future. One is left wondering, however, if the 'progress' over the intervening 45 years is all for the better.
What is most striking in films such as this is not actually the way the country itself has changed physically but the way attitudes have evolved. Would today's younger generation be able to equate with this couple who seems worlds away from the present-day permissive society? Would they understand the narow-minded bigoted attitudes of this period which is only a generation away? A world where "right's right and wrong's wrong" as Vic's sister says, she who, in contrast, married happily for love at the beginning of the film. This is a world where it is alright to smoke anywhere in the house except for the bedroom. The couple finally decide to stay together, to give it a chance once away from the overbearing mother-in-law. As in SN&SM, it ends on a note of optimism for the future. One is left wondering, however, if the 'progress' over the intervening 45 years is all for the better.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A kind of revolution...
By the early 60's it was time for a new kind of movie (& other arts too) so these excellent kitchen-sink dramas were just waiting to be made. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Tyrone
A Kind Of Loving
This is one of my favourite films and I had looked everywhere but could not find it, then I logged on to Amazon and there it was. It,s a great film a bit of nostalgia.
Published on 13 Feb 2009 by Mrs. Jm Johnston
Get your Brylcreem off my antimacassar!
Stan Barstow was one of the most underrated writers of the sixties and the following decades,and a hell of a nice bloke. Read more
Published on 14 May 2008 by Captain Chaos (Semper Vigilans)
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