This Sporting Life

• Richard Harris: Frank Machin
• Rachel Roberts: Mrs. Margaret Hammond
• Alan Badel: Gerald Weaver
• William Hartnell: Dad Johnson
• Colin Blakely: Maurice Braithwaite
• Vanda Godsell: Mrs. Anne Weaver
• Jack Watson: Len Miller

Alluring laurel is a British feature film from the year 1963. He is one of the classics of the British New Wave. The film was based on the novel This Sporting Life (1960 ) by David Storey, who also wrote the screenplay. It was the feature film debut of director Lindsay Anderson.

Action

Frank Machin is a rugby player from Yorkshire. He plays in a team that is owned by the local entrepreneur Gerald Weaver. In a game Machin is broken the jaw. Weaver and a teammate to bring him to the hospital. On the operating table, Frank remembers his history that has made ​​him the star of the rugby team.

Machin is a miner and living with the widow Margaret Hammond, who cares for him. He remembers the time when Weaver with his rival and co-owner of the club Slomer denies a contract with Frank. Frank takes advantage of this competitive situation and can negotiate a contract with gutdotierten Weaver. From Weaver he also learns that Margaret's husband came in Weavers company not by accident, but by suicide killed.

Frank Machin makes career and may soon buy a fast car. The depressive Margaret to live as he invites her and her two children in the new car for a trip. Frank Marchin gaining popularity as a hard man of the team, but this seems to Margaret apathetic. In contrast, Frank more interested for Margaret. However, Margaret is the austere appearance of Frank's embarrassing. Together, they still go to the wedding of Frank's best friend Maurice. There is a dispute and separation. Frank is also extremely saddened and pours his heart out Maurice. He really want to try again, to win the heart of Margaret. He goes to her house and learns that she was admitted to a hospital. There, she dies while he wakes up on her bed. In grief, he returned to her house. The next day he has a rugby match, risking his health in anger and grief, until he finally ends up on the operating table.

Reviews

" Lindsay Anderson's debut, one of the early movies of the British " Free Cinema "movement, is not an artistic revelation, but is full of irritating and bulky details. Through the unorthodox character drawing and the authenticity of the documentary milieu an interesting study has arisen. "

" Lindsay Anderson wanted to unite the realistic elements of the" free cinema " with a modern narrative technique in his first feature film, obviously. His film begins at the accident on Christmas and tells the history in several interspersed flashbacks. However, this structure gives the film a little ago. On the contrary - they shifted the accents of melancholy report of the fate of a worker who wants to escape from his environment, too much on the pschologischen area. In detail, but here come haunting realistic sequences. "

Awards

Richard Harris won the Best Actor Award at the International Film Festival of Cannes in 1963 and was also nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award. Rachel Roberts won a British Film Academy Award and was also nominated for an Oscar.

The Film Review Board Wiesbaden gave the production the predicate particularly valuable.