Themes: Interracial/Cross-Cultural Romance, Mothers and Daughters
Main Cast: Dora Bryan, Rita Tushingham, Robert Stephens, Murray Melvin, Paul Danquah
Release Year: 1961
Country: UK
Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
Director Tony Richardson adapted the screenplay of A Taste of Honey from the "kitchen sink" stage play by Shelagh Delaney. Rita Tushingham plays a working-class British teenager, living with her drink-sodden, libertine mother Dora Bryan. Denied affection by her selfish mother, Tushingham is pushed further in the background when Bryan impulsively marries her latest boyfriend Robert Stephens. The girl takes a job at a shoe store, then moves in with her kindly homosexual employer Murray Melvin. The two lost souls live in harmony until Tushingham becomes pregnant after a casual affair with black sailor Paul Danquah. Melvin comes to the rescue by offering to look after the baby. This relatively blissful state of affairs is short-lived; before long, Tushingham's hateful mother, having been kicked out by Stephens, descends upon her daughter and her "family," with all her debilitating emotional baggage intact. A poignant denouement caps this riveting slice-of-life drama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Critic Peter John Dyer called A Taste of Honey "tart and lively round the edges and bitter at the core." It's a well-acted 1961story of a working-class young British woman who has an affair with a black sailor and becomes pregnant. A homosexual friend proves more helpful than her loose-living mother. Controversial for its time, the powerful drama was adapted for the screen by writer Shelagh Delaney and director Tony Richardson from Shelagh's London and Broadway play. Rita Tushingham made her debut in the starring role. Its black comic tone and taboo subject matter were ahead of their time, and it presaged such later studies of biracial love as To Sir With Love and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Herb Alpert's instrumental version of the theme song was a huge international hit. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
David Boliver - Bert; Margo Cunningham - Landlady; John Harrison - Cave Attendant; Eunice Blalck - Schoolteacher; Jean Cadell; Herbert Smith - Shoe Shop Proprietor
Credit
Ralph W. Brinton - Art Director, Sophia Harris - Costume Designer, Tony Richardson - Director, Antony Gibbs - Editor, John Addison - Composer (Music Score), John Addison - Musical Direction/Supervision, Herb Alpert - Songwriter, George Frost - Makeup, Walter Lassally - Cinematographer, Tony Richardson - Producer, Shelagh Delaney - Screenwriter, Tony Richardson - Screenwriter, Shelagh Delaney - Play Author
A Taste of Honey is a 1961 British film adaptation of the play of the same name by Shelagh Delaney. Delaney adapted the screenplay herself, aided by director Tony Richardson, who had previously directed the first production of the play.
The film won four BAFTA awards: Richardson won Best British Screenplay (with Delaney) and Best British Film, Bryan won Best Actress and Tushingham was named Most Promising Newcomer. Tushingham and Melvin were Best Actress and Actor at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival.[1] In America the film won Tushingham a 1963 Golden Globe for Most Promising Female Newcomer and got Richardson a 1963 Directors Guild of America award nomination. Delaney and Richardson also won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain award.
Othello (1955) •It Should Happen to a Dog (1955) •"BBC Sunday Night Theatre" (1955) •"ITV Play of the Week" (1956) •"The Sunday-Night Play" (1960) •A Death in Canaan (1978) •The Penalty Phase (1986) •Beryl Markham: A Shadow on the Sun (1988) •Women and Men: Stories of Seduction (1990) (with Frederic Raphael and Ken Russell) •The Phantom of the Opera (1990)
