First off, Burton's way too old for the part of Jimmy Porter here. Burton was 33 when the film was made, and his features were already beginning to coarsen because of his lifestyle. That said, he gives a blistering performance, capturing the ferocious intelligence and equally ferocious anger writer John Osborne no doubt envisioned.
But what a grim tale it is. What a gloomy, dingy, rain-sodden world Jimmy, Alison, Cliff and Helena inhabit. Crammed inside a seedy flat with barely enough room for two chairs and an ironing board, it's no wonder that tempers fray at times in fact it's a wonder that only Jimmy feels any kind of strain. Alison his wife, perfectly played by the ill-fated Mary Ure, has the patience of a saint and it's difficult to see exactly what it is about Jimmy that draws her to him. Osborne certainly provides us with precious little clue. But then perhaps it's just me, because I could see little reason for Jimmy transformed from a seething mass of anger and a brooding sense of injustice into a relatively contented man once he takes up with Helena to return to his wife. Most viewers will be able to identify with his sense of being trapped in a drab life and desperately wanting more but, while his transformation came as something unexpected, the conclusion seemed to make no sense at all. Perhaps it signals a new maturity in Jimmy his essential goodness and sense of right has already been illustrated by his defence of the black stallholder the officious Donald Pleasance attempts to eject from the market but it just seems a strangely inconclusive way of doing so. Jimmy simply comes across as impulsive rather than mature.
For all that, the performances here are excellent throughout, and the story does keep you interested even if it does strain credibility in the final act. Probably undeserving of its lofty status, it still provides a good example of the 'kitchen sink' drama with which Britain would become obsessed in the late fifties and early sixties.
But what a grim tale it is. What a gloomy, dingy, rain-sodden world Jimmy, Alison, Cliff and Helena inhabit. Crammed inside a seedy flat with barely enough room for two chairs and an ironing board, it's no wonder that tempers fray at times in fact it's a wonder that only Jimmy feels any kind of strain. Alison his wife, perfectly played by the ill-fated Mary Ure, has the patience of a saint and it's difficult to see exactly what it is about Jimmy that draws her to him. Osborne certainly provides us with precious little clue. But then perhaps it's just me, because I could see little reason for Jimmy transformed from a seething mass of anger and a brooding sense of injustice into a relatively contented man once he takes up with Helena to return to his wife. Most viewers will be able to identify with his sense of being trapped in a drab life and desperately wanting more but, while his transformation came as something unexpected, the conclusion seemed to make no sense at all. Perhaps it signals a new maturity in Jimmy his essential goodness and sense of right has already been illustrated by his defence of the black stallholder the officious Donald Pleasance attempts to eject from the market but it just seems a strangely inconclusive way of doing so. Jimmy simply comes across as impulsive rather than mature.
For all that, the performances here are excellent throughout, and the story does keep you interested even if it does strain credibility in the final act. Probably undeserving of its lofty status, it still provides a good example of the 'kitchen sink' drama with which Britain would become obsessed in the late fifties and early sixties.