A Taste of Honey
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A Taste of Honey
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, RoviReview
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, RoviCast
- Dora Bryan - Helen
- Rita Tushingham - Jo
- Robert Stephens - Peter
- Murray Melvin - Geoffrey
- Paul Danquah - Jimmy
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 Hell (1973 Film), A Taste of Flesh (1967 Film) | |
| A Taste of Italy with Giuliano Bugialli (Film), A Taste of Jupiter (2002 Film) |
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A Taste of Honey
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A Taste of Honey (film)
| A Taste of Honey | |
|---|---|
 UK release poster |
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| Directed by | Tony Richardson |
| Produced by | Tony Richardson |
| Screenplay by | Shelagh Delaney Tony Richardson |
| Based on | A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney |
| Starring | Rita Tushingham Murray Melvin Dora Bryan Robert Stephens |
| Music by | John Addison |
| Editing by | Antony Gibbs |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films |
| Release date(s) |
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| Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
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. It is an exemplar of a gritty genre of British film that has come to be called kitchen sink realism.
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Contents
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Plot
Jo is a 17-year old schoolgirl, with a domineering, forty-year-old alcoholic mother, Helen. After sustaining a fall after school, Jo meets a black sailor called Jimmy who invites her on to his ship to attend to her grazed knee. They soon start a brief relationship, after which Jimmy returns to his ship and departs. Relations between Jo and her mother become strained when her mother meets and marries a new man, Peter Smith.
Feeling rejected by her mother, Jo starts a job in a shoe shop and rents a flat on her own. She meets a gay textile design student, Geoffrey Ingham, and invites him to move in with her. When Jo discovers she is pregnant by Jimmy, Geoff is supportive of her, even offering to marry her, saying at one point, "You need somebody to love you while you're looking for somebody to love."
Helen re-appears on the scene after the failure of her relationship with Peter, who turns out to have been a selfish lout. She moves in with Jo, which causes tensions between Helen and Geoff. Geoff decides he can no longer stay at the flat and moves out, leaving Helen to care for Jo and her impending baby. Symbolic of Helen's disdain of Geoffrey is her return, near the end of the film, of the bassinet he gave to Jo.
Cast
- Dora Bryan as Helen
- Robert Stephens as Peter Smith
- Rita Tushingham as Josephine ("Jo")
- Murray Melvin as Geoffrey Ingham
- Paul Danquah as Jimmy
- Michael Bilton as the Landlord
- Hazel and Stephen Blears as street urchins (uncredited)
Awards and honors
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.
See also
References
- Notes
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: A Taste of Honey". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3177/year/1962.html. Retrieved 2009-02-25.
External links
- A Taste of Honey at the Internet Movie Database
- Photo gallery at Rita Tushingham fansite
- British New Wave article on A Taste of Honey at BrokenProjector.com
- A Taste of Honey at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
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