BY NICK STARK
ONE OF THE many delights of Netflix is the ability to revisit the works of particular directors, stars or genres and after a recent few days binge-watching British kitchen sink dramas from the late 1950s and early 1960s the one which stands above the rest is This Sporting Life.
The 1963 feature debut of Lindsay Anderson features Richard Harris in a career-making turn as Frank Machin, a tough, working class miner-turned-rugby league star who wants to grab life by the lapels and take what he can. And that includes a relationship with his widowed landlady Margaret Hammond (Rachel Roberts), whose regards him with mistrust and even, at times, repulsion, repeatedly referring to him a ‘great ape’.
It’s an apt description, Harris uses his physicality to dominate every scene. His hulking frame fills the Margaret’s modest, working class front room where much of the action takes place, and his restless, body, constantly on the move, sums up not just a young man in a hurry but more often a caged big cat, prowling and searching for a way out.
Margaret’s reluctance to get involved with Frank, and the obvious disapproval of the neighbors are not the only forces arrayed against Harris’ ambitions. His rugby teammates are at first hostile to the new arrival, and the team’s board, small-town bourgeoisie to a man, consider Frank an ignorant arriviste boor – a feeling underlined by his demands for an unheard-of signing on fee of £1,000 (laughable by today’s standards of course) and his penchant for tooling around town in a swanky white Bentley.
It all ends in tears of course, both on the field and (especially) off, with Roberts giving a fine performance, complete with a macabre death bed scene, while Harris finds himself finally on the receiving end from someone just as brutal and physical as himself.
Harris’ performance dominates the film – and in his brooding muscular ferocity bears more than a passing resemblance to Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. There’s also a handful other British worthies in supporting roles, notably William Hartnell (the original Dr. Who) as the scout who discovers Frank, Arthur Lowe as the chairman of the rugby team and Leonard Rossiter as a smirking reporter for the local rag. Add an excellent new print which does full justice to the Anderson’s use of light and shadow, and some of the most authentic, mud-spattered rugby scenes ever seen on the big screen, and This Sporting Life makes up a dour, yet exhilarating movie rental.
Production year: 1963. Runtime: 134 mins. Director: Lindsay Anderson
Cast: Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, William Hartnell, Alan Badel, Colin Blakely
