"Look Back in Anger" marked the beginning of what would become known as the "Kitchen Sink" drama. In addition, John Osborne's play signalled the beginning of a new breed of actor in the British acting industry. There would be actors who would make plays and films which would reflect life in Britain as it really was. If Richard Burton had made more films like the above, then his film career would have been infinitely more satisfying. He is a tower of strength as the original angry young man, Jimmy Porter. Suffering from having an inferiority complex and also a chip on his shoulder, he voices his anger and unhappiness upon his long- suffering wife (well played by Mary Ure). Claire Bloom scored a triumph as Porter's lover. Richard Burton's highly distinctive Welsh voice is put to full use and exercises a wide range of emotions as a result. The film is an excellent adaptation of the play and it highlights the struggles of one man who feels he doesn't belong anywhere except where he is - running a market stall 5 days a week. He was actually a university student and is reduced to wasting his potential. His bitterness is aimed at his in-laws, his mother- in-law in particular. The way he describes her in a tone of mockery and being smarmy, sums up the situation pretty well. You never quite know when the next verbal assault will happen and you brace yourself for when it does. Underneath the anger, there lays a sadness and vulnerability about Porter. His affair with Claire Bloom reveals a more calm and sensitive side to his personality. The scene at the beginning which takes place on a Sunday morning, shows Jimmy Porter staring out the window at the nearby church. The church bells are ringing and Porter screams at the top of his voice, wanting the ringing to cease. Such fiery passion is produced by Burton's voice, I have rarely witnessed such a vocal display. The only other exceptions I can immediately think of, are Robert Shaw, Rod Steiger, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman and Patrick McGoohan. This is a landmark film and it is just as powerful now as it was back in the 1950s.

Emerging as one of the first of the British New Wave, Look Back In anger was actually pipped to the cinema screen in 1959 by Room At The Top.But what it loses for tardiness it makes up for in having claim to the original Angry Young Man in the form of Richard Burton, here giving an oft critiqued performance as Jimmy Porter, a working class university graduate who has chosen a life less than one would expect with his education. Working a street stall in the market he lounges the remainder of his days away in dingy digs with his wife, Allison, played here by Mary Ure in a performance that was to somewhat bizarrely reflect her own life in later years.Burton's Jimmy is certainly angry, and cruel with it, launching it verbal tirade after verbal tirade against his wife, held in check only by market partner and friend Cliff (Gary Raymond). Breaking into their claustrophobic existence come Allison's friend, Helena (Claire Bloom, who urges her to break free from the psychological hammering and return to the middle class comfort of her parents' home. This she eventually does, taking her unborn baby with her - only for Helena and Jimmy to get together and fall in love. You can't help but think throughout that Jimmy is retreading the same path with Helena - that what starts as a lovey-dovey affair will inevitably end up as the dysfunctional melodrama that Allison was made to endure.Tony Richardson does great work here, exacting the kind of performances that are needed from Ure, Bloom and Raymond. Richard Burton';s performance is often criticized as being too melodramatic, too over the top but I felt that Richardson held back from toning down the actor too allow him to make the broader, thematic point, to demonstrate not only the working class frustration from the era but also the sense of loss of belonging and purpose that was beginning to shine through British society as it's Empire fell away and as British power declined post-Suez. Indeed the idea of a "Great" Britain fading into history is neatly summed up by Allison's father, a retired Colonel who served his time in India up until independence in 1947, who marks that event as the beginning of the end for his world, for all of their worlds. "We had a good time, living" says Edith Evans character Ma Tanner as she lays flowers on the grave of her dead husband, as if she is remembering not only her long dead love, but also her love for what went before the war, as if that were a time when individuals as well as nations had a purpose that they were true to, however simple that purpose was.Oswald Morris cinematography deserves credit too, establishing a gritty look and feel that was much mimicked in kitchen-sink dramas in the early 1960s. He sits back from the interior action but not too far, allowing us to feel the cramped, coffin-like feel of Jimmy and Allison's flat; his camera work outside captures the raw feel of 1950s working class streets and industrial cities. The lighting and staging of the final scenes in the railway station is simply beautiful, an interplay of light, shadows and steam that makes even Brief Encounter look tame.Overall Look Back In Anger captures a snapshot of Britain at the cusp of immense change. The anger of people like Jimmy, fed the cultural and social revolution of the following twenty years and I've read reviews on here that say argue this dates this film beyond any modern relevance. I would disagree - and even argue that what we need is a film like this now (2013) to show the frustration, the pent up anger and the broad social disarray that Britain is falling into in the post-modern era.

"Kitchen Sink" drama was in its ascendancy when this film adaptation of John Osborne's play was transferred to the screen in 1959.Philosophically, it's very much in keeping with the conventional, (and by now extremely predictable) views of the counterculture, then viewed through the prism of "the beats" but ten years after through the prism of the hippies.Thus, we have Richard Burton, playing a young man, (a role for which he is already far too old as he looks very middle aged here) who has chosen to eke out an existence as a street vendor of penny candy by day.By night, he is an amateur musician and misanthrope, drowning in an ocean of self pity which he assuages with alcohol and wife beating.His apartment is regulation 1959 degradation model A-1, with girlie pin ups for art, the ironing board in the middle of the room, last weeks newspapers piled everywhere, and walls as pock marked as his un-pancaked oily complexion.Oh, and he has a wife, a platinum blonde, whom he slaps around, and who, discovers she is expecting in one of the film's climactic revelations.But pending fatherhood is no reason to remain faithful, and, thus, when his wife, unable to tolerate more abuse, returns to her parental home, he takes up with a visiting actress.That the actress is played by the exquisitely cultivated and beauteous Claire Bloom strains credibility to the breaking point, (why would she put up with such as this?).And it is to Miss Bloom that he directs some of Osborne's more pungent counter cultural observations--blaming those bloody Edwardians with their Rupert Brooke notions of honor, duty, propriety and respectability who mucked up everything--got it all wrong--it's more honest to live in a flea bitten flop-house and play amateur trumpet by night.Then there's his free love advocacy:, "you can't be both a saint and live--you have to choose one or the other." Did you hear that St. Thomas More? This achingly relevant study of a man in extended childhood, though technically well executed, is as tedious and false as its underlying and very bankrupt philosophy.

To watch "Look Back In Anger" so many decades after its brief era of relevancy is to encounter a head-scratchingly pointless film and wonder what all of the yelling was about. This dank and claustrophobic look at one of Britain's army of post-war "Angry Young Men" might be a tad more bearable were Richard Burton asked to take it down a notch. Burton's endless bellowing (second only to Peter O'Toole's bray-as-acting style) is ill served by it never being made quite clear just what this guy is so miffed at all the time.Surrounded by characters that either incomprehensibly find him a lovable lad (Gary Raymond, Edith Evans) or serve as doormats (Mary Ure, Claire Bloom), Burton's character is given free rein to act like a colicky brat for most of the film without ever giving us much of a clue as to the root of his dissatisfaction. Brief references to Britain's class system, racial injustice, loss of loved ones and any number of social ills feel insufficient as explanations to the source of Burton's unpleasant personality. After 40 minutes or so of being subjected to one narcissistically histrionic rage after another, one just wishes he'd shut up and realize that he isn't the only one suffering…he's just the only one who seems hell-bent on making sure others are as miserable as he is.That being said,the entire film is not devoid of certain pleasures (the photography is appropriately dingy, Claire Bloom is always a delight and Gary Raymond, so good in "Suddenly Last Summer," was a real surprise here with a more sizable role) but it's near unbearable being subjected to a film about a man feeling sorry for himself non-stop. It struck me as being sophomoric in theory and tedious in execution.If this film reminds me on anything, it's of an episode of "The Flintstones" where Fred is cast with wife Wilma in a kitchen-sink domestic drama about an abusive, lout of a husband and his meek wife. The show's title: "The Frogmouth," a perfect subtitle for this mess- Richard Burton in "Look Back in Anger aka The Frogmouth."