Edit
Storyline
In Northern England in the early 1960s, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver. Machin lodges with Mrs Hammond, whose husband was killed in an accident at Weaver's, but his impulsive and angry nature stop him from being able to reach her as he would like. He becomes increasingly frustrated with his situation, and this is not helped by the more straightforward enticements of Mrs Weaver. Written by
Jeremy Perkins <jwp@aber.ac.uk>
Plot Summary
|
Add Synopsis
Edit
Did You Know?
Trivia
In a scene in a nightclub, a young woman sings the
Helen Shapiro hit "Walking Back to Happiness". She was 21-year-old mill-girl, Kim Leslie, from Pudsey. Producer
Karel Reisz needed a Yorkshire woman for a small singing part in the film and advertised in the local papers. Within a few hours of the adverts appearing, 200 women had applied, from which a shortlist of four was selected. When these four women performed at the Wakefield Trinity rugby ground, the loudness of the crowd's applause was measured and Kim Leslie's performance was chosen.
See more »
Quotes
Frank Machin:
We don't have stars in this game, Mrs Weaver, that's soccer.
Mrs. Anne Weaver:
What *do* you have?
Frank Machin:
People like me.
See more »
Soundtracks
"For He's A Jolly Good Fellow"
Sung by the guests at the Christmas party
See more »
"This Sporting Life" is one of the most famous of the British "kitchen sink" dramas of the 1950s and 1960s ("kitchen sink" films were very gritty, social realist films which were very popular in Britain at one time).
Frank Machin (Richard Harris) is a brutal, young miner in a city in northern England. Hoping for fame and fortune, he becomes a successful Rugby League football player. He uses his fame and fortune, along with physical violence, to try to force his widowed landlady (Rachel Roberts) to fall for him.
Photographed in bleak black-and-white, the film's scenes of emotional and physical domestic violence are still shocking today. Also notable are the violent, stylishly-shot rugby matches.
The cast are brilliant without exception, especially Richard Harris who manages to invest even his totally unsympathetic character with some degree of humanity.