3. Look Back In Anger (1959)
An adaptation of John Osborne's play, which was pretty kitchen sinkish and breathed new air into British drama of the period. Jimmy is from a working class background. He has a degree, which although uncommon to the working class back then, presumably opens a lot of doors for him. Instead, he shuns the chance to have a better life and sticks to his working class roots by working as a market trader. Jimmy's wife Alison is from an upper middle class background and hates being squeezed into a tiny, dingy flat. Her family don't approve of Jimmy. Jimmy and Alison have a strange 'can't live with them, can't live without them' marriage. They absolutely adore each other, but the class differences between them are a source of constant friction. After a series of quarrels, Jimmy leaves Alison for her friend Helena. Unbeknownst to the three parties at the time, Alison was pregnant but lost the baby. As she reenters Jimmy's life, Helena steps back so the couple can be a pair again. Jimmy doesn't seem to ascribe to an ideological system such as socialism or communism. He is just downright bitter and resentful at any form of authority. Sometimes I don't even know what he is railing against during the film - he exemplifies the then popular figure of British cinema and drama - the Angry Young Man. Richard Burton does play the role of Jimmy a bit too exuberantly, and watching the film after all these years shows that it is a total anachronism. The issues presented in the film are dated and largely obsolete. Today we live in a much more fluid society with no holds barred. Class boundaries have faded and a commoner has just given birth to the heir of the throne. As Shakespeare said it is "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".