No Love for Johnnie
| No Love for Johnnie | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Ralph Thomas |
| Starring |
Peter Finch Stanley Holloway |
| Music by | Malcolm Arnold |
| Cinematography | Ernest Steward |
| Edited by | Alfred Roome |
| Distributed by | Embassy Pictures Corporation |
Release date |
9 February 1961 (World Premiere, London 14 February 1961 (UK) 12 December 1961 (US) |
Running time | 110 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
No Love for Johnnie is a 1961 British drama film directed by Ralph Thomas. It was based on the book of the same name by the Member of Parliament Wilfred Fienburgh and stars Peter Finch.
The film had its world premiere on 9 February 1961 at the Leicester Square Theatre in London's West End.
Plot
Johnnie is reelected with the ruling Labour Party but is disappointed not to receive an invitation to join the Government. As his wife leaves him, he joins a conspiratorial group working against the centrist government. Mary, the single woman upstairs adores him but they never quite become a couple. Johnnie falls in love with a 20-year-old student/model Pauline, and misses an important speech because he is in bed with her. His conspirators turn against him and cause his constituents to attempt to unseat him. He narrowly escapes a vote of no-confidence in his constituency, and goes in search of Pauline who has ended their relationship, still in love, but knows it is not the right relationship for her. He goes back home, to find his wife wants to try again and she gives him her contact phone number. The Prime Minister offers him a post, and reveals that the reason Johnnie was not offered one before was due to his wife's communist connections. Johnnie tears up the paper with his wife's phone number and embraces his role in government.
Finch won two film awards for this performance - one a BAFTA and the other the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 11th Berlin International Film Festival.[1]
Cast
- Peter Finch as Johnnie Byrne
- Stanley Holloway as Fred Andrews
- Mary Peach as Pauline
- Donald Pleasence as Roger Renfrew
- Billie Whitelaw as Mary
- Hugh Burden as Tim Maxwell
- Rosalie Crutchley as Alice
- Michael Goodliffe as Dr. West
- Mervyn Johns as Charlie Young
- Geoffrey Keen as The Prime Minister
- Paul Rogers as Sydney Johnson
- Dennis Price as Flagg
- Peter Barkworth as Henderson
- Fenella Fielding as Sheila
- Derek Francis as Frank
- Conrad Phillips as Drake
- Gladys Henson as Constituent
- Peter Sallis as M.P.
Production
Ralph Thomas later said "we made that because we wanted to make it very much. We all loved it - Betty, myself, Peter Finch."[2]
Betty Box said she was "very surprised Rank let me do it... because they were very politically conservative as an organisation. Perhaps they liked the Peter Finch character being so corrupt because, after all, he was left wing. I must say I liked it very much... I enjoyed making it very much. I loved working with Peter Finch. He was drunk some of the time, and not always very easy, but I was just very fond of him. Ralph and I both knew how to work with him."[3]
Reception
Thomas says the film "got great notices although it was never a commercial success, didn't even pay for itself... It very much reflected the politics of the day. the plain fact is that people were not very interested in the politics of the day."[2]
References
- ↑ "Berlinale 1961: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2010-01-23.
- 1 2 Brian McFarlane, An Autobiography of British Cinema 1997 p 559
- ↑ Brian McFarlane, An Autobiography of British Cinema 1997 p 87