WRITTEN BY: ALAN SILLITOE
I watched this British New Wave film last night thanks to my public library down the street. Tom Courtenay(so handsome) plays a working-class youth of northern England who ends up in a reform school for boys where he begins to run "long distance" to escape the oppression of growing up poor with no future really besides working at some grimy mill like his father who dies at the beginning of the film. Directed by Tony Richardson, who at the time was married to Vanessa Redgrave, it was adapted by Alan Sillitoe from his short story. Michael Redgrave, Vanessa's father, plays the stern head of the reform school. "Long Distance Runner" was one of several key movies of the New Wave in British cinema, which sought to portray the British working class with dignity. The press dubbed them "kitchen sink" dramas. These movies were also critical of the rigid British class system which existed at the time. Not sure if it still does.
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