Main Cast: Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason, Cedric Hardwicke, Richard Johnson
Release Year: 1964
Country: UK
Run Time: 110 minutes
Plot
Anne Bancroft stars as a restless, twice-married British woman with six children, whose third husband is a fledgling screenwriter (Peter Finch). When success spins Finch's head around, he begins to dally with women other than his wife. Meanwhile, Bancroft is forced to stay home and play "domestic goddess", a role for which she is utterly unsuited. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Bancroft wanders the streets of London in a vain search for a sympathetic ear. She eventually comes to grips with the situation at hand--but as in most of playwright Harold Pinter's works, the characters of The Pumpkin Eater are just as unfulfilled in the last scene as they were in the first. Anne Bancroft won a Cannes Film Festival award for her performance in this film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Anne Bancroft's cathartic lead performance anchors The Pumpkin Eater, Harold Pinter's harrowing, elliptical tale of marital dissatisfaction. Though much of the film concerns her character's fitful bouts with depression, Bancroft charges every moment she's onscreen, employing an array of subtle gestures and facial expressions to convey what her repressed character cannot. Pinter and director Jack Clayton never resort to facile satire or pat assignations of blame; instead, the film charts the slow, irreversible manner in which a chasm can grow between husband and wife. As Bancroft's callous husband, Peter Finch perfectly conveys the subtle, damaging hypocrisies that eventually break his wife's spirit. James Mason has a particularly memorable supporting role as a vitriolic, passive-aggressive acquaintance of the couple. Bancroft won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her work in the little-seen British production, as well as her second Oscar nomination. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Eric Porter - Psychiatrist; Rosalind Atkinson - Jo's Mother; Frances White - Dinah; Alan Webb - Mr. Armitage, Jake's Father; Cyril Luckham - Doctor; Janine Gray - Beth Conway; Yootha Joyce - Woman at Hairdresser; Frank Singuineau - King of Israel; Elizabeth Dear; Christopher Ellis - Fergus; John Franklyn-Robbins - Parson; Faith Kent - Nanny; David Langton; Fergus McClelland; Anthony Nicholls - Surgeon; Sarah Nicholls - Elizabeth; Michael Ridgeway; Gerald Sim - Man at Party; Maggie Smith - Philpot; John Junkin - Undertaker; Gregory Phillips; Leslie Nunnerley - Waitress at Zoo; Rupert Osborne - Pete
Credit
Edward Marshall - Art Director, Motley - Costume Designer, Jack Clayton - Director, Jim Clark - Editor, Georges Delerue - Composer (Music Score), George Frost - Makeup, Oswald Morris - Cinematographer, James Woolf - Producer, Peter James - Set Designer, Harold Pinter - Screenwriter, Penelope Mortimer - Book Author
The story revolves around Jo Armitage (Bancroft), a woman with six children from three marriages, who becomes negative and withdrawn after discovering that her third (and current) husband, Jake (Finch), has been unfaithful to her. After a series of loosely related events in which Jake's infidelity is balanced by his reliability as a breadwinner and a father, Jo and Jake take a first tentative step toward reconciliation.
Most of the story is based on two issues: Jo's predilection for childbearing and Jake's extramarital affairs. The question of Jo's fertility is first breached by her psychiatrist. He suggests that she may feel uncomfortable with the messiness or vulgarity of sex, and that she may be using childbirth to justify it to herself. This does not prevent her from becoming pregnant again, but she follows suggestions by Jake and her doctor that she have an abortion and a hysterectomy, and she seems happy after the operation.
Meanwhile, signs accumulate that Jake has been having affairs while pursuing a successful career as a screenwriter. The first indication is about a woman who lived with the Armitage family for a while. Jake reacts irrationally and unconvincingly to Jo's questioning after the children tell her the woman fainted into Jake's arms. The second sign comes from Bob Conway (Mason), an acquaintance who alleges an affair between his wife and Jake during production of a film in Morocco. Finally, Jake admits some of his infidelities under heated interrogation by Jo. After venting her frustration by furiously assaulting him, she retaliates by having an affair with her second husband. This elicits a similar coldness from Jake.
In the film's finale, Jo spends a night alone in the unused windmill that the family once lived in. The following morning, Jake and their children arrive at the windmill with food. Seeing how happy her children are with Jake, Jo indicates her acceptance of him by sadly but graciously accepting a can of soda from him, a gesture which echoes another scene in the windmill from a happier time in their marriage.
