A dated but still very effective 'kitchen sink' drama in the wake of Alan Sillitoe's Saturday NIGHT AND Sunday MORNING two years earlier.Sillitoe again sets it in his native Nottingham,although the main performers involved,Tom Courtneay(Hull)and James Bolam(Sunderland) are clearly from Northern England and not the East Midlands and do nothing to disguise their native accents.
The film is told mainly in flashback,with Colin Smith(Courtneay)thinking over his depressing life while serving time in Borstal for a robbery;his only real strength is running,and a sympathetic warden(Michael Redgrave)encourages the youth to better himself.
The film is basically about a working-class rebel and his battles with authority(i.e. the police,bosses,borstal,etc.),a new and refreshing concept at the time,but somewhat done scores of times over four decades later.Still,the bleak,dismal atmosphere is accurately caught by cinematographer Walter Lassally,quirkily directed by Tony Richardson(several scenes in the film are momentarily speeded up,providing some humour amongst the grimness)and well-acted.The final race sequence is somewhat ambiguous;why does Colin behave as he did? The ultimate rebellion against the establishment or as a acceptance of the dull,ordinary life he will lead? The cast has some interesting names before they made it big on UK TV;Bolam,John Thaw,and Arthur Mullard,whose bluff cockney tones are absent here due to dubbing.
The film is told mainly in flashback,with Colin Smith(Courtneay)thinking over his depressing life while serving time in Borstal for a robbery;his only real strength is running,and a sympathetic warden(Michael Redgrave)encourages the youth to better himself.
The film is basically about a working-class rebel and his battles with authority(i.e. the police,bosses,borstal,etc.),a new and refreshing concept at the time,but somewhat done scores of times over four decades later.Still,the bleak,dismal atmosphere is accurately caught by cinematographer Walter Lassally,quirkily directed by Tony Richardson(several scenes in the film are momentarily speeded up,providing some humour amongst the grimness)and well-acted.The final race sequence is somewhat ambiguous;why does Colin behave as he did? The ultimate rebellion against the establishment or as a acceptance of the dull,ordinary life he will lead? The cast has some interesting names before they made it big on UK TV;Bolam,John Thaw,and Arthur Mullard,whose bluff cockney tones are absent here due to dubbing.