User reviews

"This Sporting Life" is one of the most famous of the British "kitchen sink" dramas of the 1950s and 1960s ("kitchen sink" films were very gritty, social realist films which were very popular in Britain at one time).

Frank Machin (Richard Harris) is a brutal, young miner in a city in northern England. Hoping for fame and fortune, he becomes a successful Rugby League football player. He uses his fame and fortune, along with physical violence, to try to force his widowed landlady (Rachel Roberts) to fall for him.

Photographed in bleak black-and-white, the film's scenes of emotional and physical domestic violence are still shocking today. Also notable are the violent, stylishly-shot rugby matches.

The cast are brilliant without exception, especially Richard Harris who manages to invest even his totally unsympathetic character with some degree of humanity.

This Sporting Life may be a touch overlong, but it is overall a truly brilliant movie and still hits hard after all these years. It has a very realistic story, and the characters are given so much depth and realism it is hard not to empathise. The cinematography is wonderful, the setting is truly evocative, the direction is superb and the screenplay truthful and honest. There are many superb scenes, particularly some truly remarkable scenes of confrontation that are honest to the point it verges on painful to listen. As for the acting, Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts really do give the roles of their live in This Sporting Life, and are both absolutely brilliant as the ruthless professional rugby player and repressed widowed landlady with whom he can only communicate with through violence, and they are finely supported by the likes of Alan Badel and William Hartnell. Overall, brilliant film with a great cast and a hard-hitting sense of realism. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Gripping, arresting and totally believable from the start, this is excitingly authentic. The terrible game of rugby league football is beautifully shot in all the horror of its violent thuggery and macho heroism. The streets, the houses, the shops, the pubs, the clubs and the children playing all evoke memories of that admittedly dreary but familiar visions. The living spaces, some cramped and dinged, like mine a that time, and others spacious and exuding that illusive smell of success (or upper class thuggery!) All this is fine and Richard Harris is fully believable as the film's angry young man. It is just that as the, rather overlong, film continues we get less of the 'sporting life' and the 'dead end streets' and more of the 'love' story and rather clumsy stabs at class warfare. In the end we are rather tiring of all the 'I love you', 'I hate you' cries and welcome the closing credit but it is still very much a worth seeing film that probably catches more of what it really felt like to be in Britain late 50s/early 60s than any other film I have seen.

There's a very angry lad by name of Frank, miner by day, weekends he's down the flank, quite a vile kind of guy, couldn't like him if you tried, if he had a chain you'd give it a good yank. He lodges with a lady Mrs. Hammond, he rants and raves, and issues her demands, of how to live her life, causing conflict, grief and strife, he's just desperate to ensnare, to trap, then bond. A chance to become pro, is signed and sealed, gives him money he can brandish, ply and wield, force landlady to his ways, bullies her until she lays, she's defenceless, has no cover, she has no shield.

One of the most dislikeable characters you're likely to come across, brilliantly performed by Richard Harris, who only occasionally reminds us of his native brogue, while he destroys the life of his landlady, superbly performed by Rachel Roberts. It's just a shame that people like this still exist today.

British New Wave auteur Lindsay Anderson's feature debut, a "kitchen sink" drama of the first order, stars Harris as Frank Machin, an aggressive coal-miner-turned-rugby-player in Wakefield, who lodges in with a widow Ms. Margaret Hammond (Roberts) and her two young children. He is a rough diamond type, an indomitable "ape" on the field, but constantly perturbed by dissatisfaction and loneliness, he is pining for being wanted, especially by Margaret, who always gives him cold shoulder over his benevolent advances.

The film starts with intimate close-ups of the men-to-men action during an ongoing game, which echoes with its bleak ending, the same Frank in the field, doing the only thing he is really good at, to continue his life. After a sucker punch knocks him out in cold, he is taken to a dentist to fix his messed-up teeth, under the influence of anesthetic, the narrative begins to alternate between flashbacks and the current time-frame, a tactic sometimes can cause unnecessary confusion, for instance, I cannot ascertain the sequence where he punches a fellow player Len (Watson) happens in the flashback or after the dentist, also why does he do that?

Soon we will know, Frank gets his start with the help of 'Dad' Johnson (Hartnell), an elderly scout for the local rugby league club owner Gerald Weaver (Badel), Anderson subtly implies there is a latent homo-eroticism among the rugby business, not just the graphic roughhousing among macho and burly players, also from 'Dad', whom Margaret observe from their first meeting that his ogling look at Frank means something more than just a friend; and the perpetually suave Mr. Weaver, once impulsively reveals his intention with a seemingly casual pinch on Frank's thigh, which Anderson particularly singles out in intimacy. Although this strand doesn't pan out because of Frank's crass manner and erratic behavior, it certainly validates Anderson's unorthodox perception.

After all, the main selling point is between Frank and Margaret, Harris and Roberts (then still Ms. Rex Harrison, and who would sadly commit suicide in 1980 at the age of 53) both pull out all the stops to elicit possibly their career-best performances. They are both gravely flawed characters, deep inside Frank is solely a naive and insecure boy wanting love albeit his masculine aggression, and Margaret is a damaged good stranded in a traumatic tragedy and barely sustained by the intention to live, thus, his one-sided courtship in her eyes is merely to objectify her as a kept woman, and she eventually complies, but she doesn't love him, she is the one who is incapable of love, because as we audience can testify, Frank is not that bad as a person, yes, he is a volatile woman-beater, an insolent jackass, without too much education, but he has the sense of justice, and he is craving for a reciprocal feeling of being wanted. The only happy moment between them is an outing with two kids, Frank can be a good father figure, but Margaret will never let that happen, both are too obstinate to compromise, Frank can easily choose another object, but no, he will not take no as an answer.

Richard Harris superbly brings about Frank's multifarious personae, he is a blunt force of nature, yet he can also be quietly implosive in haunting close-ups. Like his close friends Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, he is another British thespian to whom Oscar owes a golden statue. Rachel Roberts, incredibly augments tensions and empathy against her around-the-clock sullen facade and dead inside, fairly enough, both are Oscar-nominated.

Anderson showcases his brilliant expertise of shooting scenes with rapid movements and indoors close-ups, the monochromatic palette effectively adds a layer of fatalism to a rather dispiriting melodrama anchored by two powerhouse performances, truly is one of the best of its time.

I saw this at a theater years ago. It had sunk into what appears to be obscurity -- highly undeservedly. Tonight I saw it on the small screen. And as powerful and, oddly, as shockingly intimate as it is, it doesn't work as well this way.

Why? The reason is the structure. The straightforward scenes are searing.. But there are hallucinations that have Richard Harris now in one situation, then in another, then lying back in the dentist's chair. Call me a Philistine but on a 20-inch screen this Resnais-like "Is it or isn't it?" is hard to follow.

That said, it is a beautiful movie overall. The lead performances have rarely been equaled. Richard Harris, as a headstrong rugby player, is convincing 100%. Rachel Roberts plays the rather dour, confused and grieving widow from whom he lets a room and whom he loves. She was not conventionally beautiful but she had extraordinary screen presence. Their every scene together is chilling and poignant.

The structure is there. The movie is finished and could never be properly well made. It is a sort of angry young man meets French New Wave. Anyone reading this who might be put off by my confession about finding it a bit rough to follow on a TV screen: Please do not be put off. This is a very serious, insightful movie, well performed all around. And you are unlikely to see Harris better in anything else and, sadly, unlikely to see Ms. Roberts in much else at all.

Set in the working class environs of Northern England (Yorkshire), this is a stark and uncompromising film. Richard Harris gives a performance of a lifetime as a rugby player who, both on and off the field of play, seems able to express himself only through violence.

Lindsay Anderson directs wonderfully, insisting on gritty realism, and stripping everything of any hint of cinematic glamour. Unlike the French "nouvelle vague", Anderson wasn't interested in technique for its own sake: he was more concerned with actual substance. Here, he explores the depths of the characters, and their relationships with each other; and, in particular, their emotions, which are volcanic. Never have such naked passions been portrayed on screen with such power. One feels somewhat drained by the end.

Something was happening in the British cinema in the 60s. Where did it all disappear?

...but if you've had a bellyful of that whole 'angry young working class man' era (1950s through to the 1970s) of film-making, replete with gritty depictions of how hard life - and the people living it - were (and this was true for the majority of Brits...for the majority of the 20th century!), you'll give this a miss, despite the excellent acting from acting luminaries such as the young Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts, etc (indeed, it's difficult to fault ANY of the performances in this film) and the then-cutting edge directing and relatively unusual theme of rugby in a working class area (generally known as the sport used to toughen up privileged middle-to-upper-class boys at private schools - no doubt it made for an excellent foreshadowing of the military, for which many of those boys were destined!). Personally, I found the whole thing compelling (due to the performances and the 'slice-of- history' aspect - before my time, but definitely well within the living memory of several of my English relatives) yet ultimately deeply depressing - and far two long/desperately in need of an edit; for one thing, the endless adaptations of 'real life' novels featuring working class animal-sexuality hero has been done to death in British cinema (pioneered of course by DH Lawrence, who was roughly 30 years ahead of his time and didn't live long enough to see the triumph of his 'type', though he, personally, paid a fairly high price for pioneering it); for another, the closed-down-emotions of various men and women/widows clearly suffering from various forms of unexplained post-traumatic stress syndrome (though it is never explained explicitly, it is clear that the leading lady's husband committed suicide because he was suffering from depression as a result of sustaining trauma during service in the war - something so many men struggled with; therefore, though she is attracted to the brash young (too young to have served) lodger who clearly wants her, he cannot relate to the extent of her own trauma of loss, grief and insecurity, which he clumsily attempts to 'snap her out of' in various mostly misfired ways, receiving absolutely no support or guidance from her or anyone else as to how to gain her trust and win her heart and hand!) - I just find watching this kind of mass misunderstanding and miscommunication and mangled affections and misread gestures of love and good intentions akin to watching a train wreck!!

To my mind, and to many others, This Sporting Life is the essential, character-driven British exponent of that 1960's realism, 'kitchen sink' drama.

With its moody and stark black & white photography and a similarly moody and stark, career best (my opinion) performance by Richard Harris - and the settings are as they were in Northern England back then. Yes, you guessed it - moody and stark.

Coal mining is, or was a tough job. For an ambitious man, that wasn't quite enough for Frank Machin (Harris) and so, when his way of showing off and 'getting the ladies', Saturday afternoon rugby league turns good, he milks it dry. This, goes to his head and becomes a weapon of oneupmanship, to lever his ego above those of his friends and work colleagues.

But, for all the hard, realism on the field, it's the poignant but also often aggressive outcomes with the women who creep into his life. Especially for his landlady, who in some ways, remains the only relative constant in his topsy-turvy world. They're not the meek and demure ones that maybe he would emotionally feel comfortable with - and preferred - and their truths hurt him as much as the injuries he gets on the pitch.

I find the film riveting and memorable, but also hard work and some might say, it's a little melodramatic at times. But, that was the style back then and the character is certainly able to support it. I feel I should have given it ten stars, but then that would diminish (albeit very slightly) those few I do.

Conscious during grueling dental surgery after an accident on the sports field, an egotistical rugby player recalls the highs and many lows of his sporting career in this stark British drama starring Richard Harris. Both Harris and co-star Rachel Roberts (playing a widowed landlady who he romances) received Oscar nominations for their roles, and both deliver fine turns, coming across as real human beings struggling to make it in a world where the odds seem stacked against them. The film's arguable best assets though are its dreamy flashback structure and Roberto Gerhard's terse and unsettling music score -- and neither of these elements is consistent throughout. The music is mostly limited to the first few scenes, while the flashback structure oddly vanishes partway in and the film does not quite have the same edge with events playing out in real time. Between his constant bitterness and elevated sense of self-importance, Harris has a totally dislikeable character and he is consequently most sympathetic when in the dentist chair and forced to reflect. That said, the film is still fairly powerful in the post-dental scenes as Harris has very down-to-earth things to say, realising that rugby is not a lifetime career and stating "I need something for good... something permanent". His scenes in the hospital towards the end are great too, and while quite brutal, the spider sequence truly seems to epitomise the culmination of negative emotions within him. This is quite an unhappy film and not the easiest one to watch, but it leaves an indelible impression for sure.

Frank Machin is an amateur rugby league player in Yorkshire. Ambitious within the sport, Frank pushes himself in front of the local scouts and soon is signed to one of the professional clubs and able to hold out for £1000 down to join. As he rises within his own world, Frank has more resources and more opportunity but a strained affair with his landlady Margaret and his inability to shake off his basic roots see him frustrated and pained with his journey.

Like many others have said in relation to this film, British cinema did have something at one point. The "Free Cinema" movement of the 1950's gave a home to a slightly more realistic form of cinema and, although I do not like all within that "movement" that I have seen, I do think that Anderson's work with that paved the way for this. At times the film is too keen to revel in the depiction of working class England but this isn't too much and perhaps, if you think of the context of the period (where such views were not the norm) then you can perhaps understand why. However the power of the film is less in its depiction of the working class work (although this is indeed of value) but more in the convincing exploration of the character of Frank.

Here is a man who has aspirations but seems unable to reconcile these goals to be "better" with the fact that he is from the working classes and doesn't fit with those above him. Likewise he needs affection, love and intimacy but his outward emotions are much cruder and he is quick to lose his temper and resort to violence as the simplest reaction. It is a well written script and it doesn't push the characters or emotions past where they would naturally go for the sake of the film; you can see this in the conclusion which is meaningful and ultimately quite downbeat. Anderson's direction is suitably gritty and natural for the material, but it was Harris that impressed me most.

His performance can be mistaken for being a bit showy and loud and some viewers have made that call. However for me this was his character's boorishness, a quality that he sinks into with ease. However where Harris really does his best work is in the moments just before this happens, or immediately afterwards where, without words, we can often see this struggle, this conflict within himself. It is hard for me to describe here in words so think how difficult it must be to do as an actor but Harris pulls it off. He is well supported by Roberts and they share some excellent scenes. Smaller roles are also well filled with natural turns from the likes of Hartnell, Lowe, Blakely and others; but the film is Harris'.

Not perfect and perhaps a little longer than it can sustain, this is an impressive film. The working class depiction does seem a bit heavy at times through modern eyes but in the emotion and development of the characters the film is hard to really question. Engaging, well written and well delivered – like others have said, where are the British classics like this now? Four Weddings? Do me a favour...

Great movie.

Ostensibly a sport-drama but the main plot of the movie is as a relationship / human drama. Very thoughtful and emotional plot.

Great, gritty direction by Lindsay Anderson. The use of black-and- white photography helped the feeling of desolation, melancholy and emotional emptiness.

Requires some patience though - starts slowly.

Good performances by Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts, both of whom received Oscar nominations for their efforts.

Worth watching.

This title mostly stays obscurely distant to the wider audience, which is utterly sad, almost as the movie itself. "This sporting life" marks era of the British New Wave, but it is somehow off the French mellow tracks. Frank Machin is rude and robust, just like the circumstances of time and place. After swift uplift of cinematic themes, which almost totally set WWII into background, 1960ies made Brits turn the mirror inwards. Medium of film was open for investigating and reflecting what hides in one's inner and where could it lead. In circle, surely, as well-tried French recipe of the era already settled the never-ending mental pattern.

This is basically a love story, a tale of two fairly different people joined in their solitude. They glide through scenery of urban and mental squalor, wonderfully photographed by Denys N. Coop. Shades of the mind are so aptly blended with interiors and every feeling convincingly underlined by many (but never one too many) close-ups. By my account, the only moment which was superfluous happened in the fancy restaurant: Frank taking Margaret and her new fur-coat to dinner to a place that was never intended for them. Frank's rawness in the situation was a bit over the top, movie could have well done without it, or at least with having it toned down.

Nevertheless, poetry is inevitable. Lindsay Anderson managed to draw tenuity out of time, places and persons who struggled against each other. Finale offered the only possible solution: For those who stayed – "after all…tomorrow is another day."

You know, the more I watch English movies from the 1960's, the more I fall in love with them, Films like I'm all Right Jack, Darling, Alfie, and now, This Sporting Edge, always feature the U.K. as this gritty place, where living is tough, and the people are tougher. Now, whether that's true to life I'm not sure (though I'd be interested to find out) but I sure get a kick out of these films, and I'm glad to add This Sporting Life to that list.

Richard Harris just acts the hell out of his role as a Miner who finds his forte as a star Rugby player. Let's stop here. Why aren't there any more Rugby movies? Soccer and Boxing are always popular sports in movies, but Rugby seems to be sadly neglected. Perhaps they thought this was the definitive movie on this subject? Anyways, Richard Harris's character, Frank Machin, maybe is a brilliant rugby player, but sort of not so in life, but that doesn't stop him from trying to succeed with what he has. The rich people, who of course, have control over the teams, give him some opportunities to move up in the Rugby world.. Some which he's comfortable with, like dropping his Father like a hot potato, other conditions, he's left wondering how low he has to go to make it big. Oooh.

So while Machin is trying to move up in the Rugby world, at home, he's trying to make the the move on his INCREDIBLY repressed landlady, played by Rachel Roberts. Who's that? I've never heard of her up to this movie, and seeing her in this makes me want to see more of her, because she's fabulous in this.

All in all, a great view.

Other reviews will describe the grim imagery and relay the kitchen sink stuff, but for me THIS SPORTING LIFE has a visceral reality I can feel, from the cold mud, to the cold hearts. Richard Harris certainly is somewhere near the waterfront with Marlon on this one, and certainly Lindsay Anderson would have seen the film funded on the strength of making a British near equivalent of the 1954 Brando film. Harris is magnificent as the young bull willing to emotionally commit to a squeamish widow and her two kids. He lays his heart on the line for everyone in this film and his character takes leaps of loving willingness and faith only to be flung in the mud constantly. He begs for a family life and begs for a chance to be a husband. The peripheral characters of the football club are well realized and frank talk of desire from all genders, along with astonishing male nudity make this a film that still holds an audience. Only a few times does the story slip (the flophouse scene) but the brutal sexual reality of freezing grimy little houses with freezing cranky little souls is clear to see. A massive sad masterpiece of 1963 Brit film making. Harris a magnetic as the wounded gladiator seriously wanting love and family.

Watching Richard Harris' performance as Frank Machin in Lindsay Anderson's 1963 masterpiece "This Sporting Life" you might be reminded of Marlon Brando's work in "A Streetcar Named Desire" or indeed of Robert De Niro's Jake La Motta in Scorsese's later "Raging Bull", (Scorsese's film owes a great deal to "This Sporting Life" without ever quite measuring up). All three characters share the same animalistic intensity and an inability to communicate except in the most primordial level. This was the film that made Harris a star and it's his greatest performance; he was nominated for the Oscar and won the Best Actor prize at Cannes. His co-star is the great Rachel Roberts as the widowed landlady who takes Machin into her bed. Like Harris, she too was nominated and deservedly so; she's as fine here as she was in Karl Reisz's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", (Reisz produced this film while Anderson made his feature debut as a director). David Storey did the superb adaptation from his own novel and the brilliant supporting cast included Alan Badel, William Hartnell and Colin Blakely. Denys Coop was responsible for the cinematography and Peter Taylor was the editor. It's still one of the finest of all films that uses sport both as a backdrop and as a metaphor and is one of the greatest of all 'kitchen-sink' movies.

Having seen the film several times I can relate to the lifestyle of the characters, I was a child in the sixties and my memories of life back then are reflected in the atmostsphere that the film generates.

I have read various comments about the film looking dated, and yes it does, but it is a true reflection on life at that time.

It is also a great historical piece as many of the towns and sports arena's used in the film have changed drastically or no longer exist.

I particularly remember the MECCA social club in Wakefield and the various coffee bars that surrounded it, Belle Vue where the Rugby League scenes were shot has stayed remarkably unchanged over the years and I still enjoy the atmostsphere as I watch my favourite team Wakefield Trinity Wildcats.

To see the massive cooling towers in the background stirs memories of being there on a Saturday afternoon with my late Father Norman.

I have a real soft spot for this film and I'm sorry that I have concentrated on my memories rather than the films content.