The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962): U.K.

Reviewed by Byron Potau.  Viewed on DVD.

Adapted by Alan Sillitoe from his novel, Tony Richardson’s 1962 The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a fine example of the angry young man phase of British filmmaking in the 1960’s.

Tom Courtenay plays Colin Smith, a young man sentenced to a reform school for theft.  While there he catches the eye of the school’s governor, played by veteran British actor Michael Redgrave.  The governor has managed to get one of the nearby public schools to compete with his reform school in athletics.  He particularly has his eye on winning the long distance race and thinks Smith is the one to do it.  From then on Smith gets preferential treatment as he trains in preparation for the race.  Interspersed are flashback scenes of Smith’s home life in the time leading up to his arrest, as his father dies, his mother’s boyfriend moves in, and Smith and his friend Mike (James Bolam) commit petty crimes to take their girlfriends on mini trips out of the city.  As Smith trains for the race and reflects on his recent past he seems uncertain how to feel about his new privileged place.

The film is somewhat dated in places but is still engaging, interesting, and enjoyable cinema.  The stark black and white cinematography (director Richardson was previously a documentary filmmaker) lends a gritty realism to the film as does the garbled and slangy dialogue spoken with a lower class dialect, which is difficult to decipher and not helped by the crude sound quality.  Tom Courtenay, in his film debut, gives a good performance as the moody, rebellious Colin, but his running style is so erratic as to be almost comical.  It is far from graceful and based on the style alone makes you wonder how this guy is fast.  Richardson employs fast motion a few times in the film for comic effect, but given the film’s tone it seems out of place here.  Richardson would use this technique again to better effect the following year with his Oscar winning Tom Jones.  Overall the film still appeals in its presentation of lower class struggle, sullen alienation, and rebellion against authority which never seems to go out of style.