"The Pumpkin Eater" is a depressing film. Like "Darling" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," it's one of those bleak, black & white 1960's dramas about self-absorbed "High Society" twits who are their own worst enemies. Jo Armitage (Anne Bancroft) is an English housewife and mother. For her third marriage, Jo divorces her second husband and marries Jake Armitage (Peter Finch), a screenwriter. Jo and her four kids move into a house in London with Jake, and they have one or two more kids. (It's never made clear just how many children Jo has, but it's a lot.) Although Jake is a doting father to Jo's children, and seems to like kids, he makes Jo have an abortion when she becomes pregnant yet again.Over time, Jo descends into depression, as her rotten, stinkin' husband has numerous extra-marital affairs. Jo suffers a nervous breakdown in Harrod's Department Store. She sees a psychiatrist for a time, then unreasonably dismisses him when he tells her he's taking a short vacation. She has an affair of her own with her ex-husband, and beats up Jake after he makes another girl pregnant. And they both keep smoking cigarettes -- and smoking, and smoking, and smoking. These characters are making *themselves* miserable! It isn't simply that Jake is a rotten husband; Jo doesn't make it easy for him. She complains that he's ruining their marriage, but when Jake offers to take her along to Morocco, where one of his films is being shot, in hopes that they can save their marriage, Jo refuses to go with him. But she won't tell him *why* she refuses! The movie is based on a novel by Patricia Mortimer, wife of John Mortimer (author of the "Rumpole" series). By all accounts, both Patricia and John had numerous affairs during their stormy marriage. The screenplay is by Harold Pinter, himself a notorious womanizer. It features the usual "Pinter" touches – the hellish cocktail party, flashbacks, betrayals, cruelty, domination, an encounter with a caustic stranger (Jo meets a deranged woman at the beauty parlor who rips into her for having such a "perfect life"), and long slow passages of dialogue where people yammer on and on about nothing! Pinter was so good at this claptrap that they gave him the Nobel Prize for it.James Mason plays a windbag movie director, whom Jake unwisely crosses by having an affair with his wife, and who then launches a vendetta against Jake. Maggie Smith makes an early appearance as a blabbering Cockney house guest who also has an affair with Jake. And Cedric Hardwicke (in his last role) plays Jo's father, who warns Jake and Jo that their marriage will be a disaster, but cheerfully pays for the wedding and gives them a house to live in anyway.One element of the story that I found particularly unbelievable was Jake and Jo's children. They seem unnaturally happy, eternally pippy, always smiling and laughing. Jo's oldest daughter is a bubbly teen who cheerfully visits Jo in the hospital, and doesn't seem to realize her mother has just had an abortion. Even the two oldest sons, whom Jo ships off to boarding school, bear her no ill will, and smile when they are finally reunited, even though their mother has selfishly cast them aside.Do these kids have *any idea* that their parents are at each other throats? Don't they hear the screaming and fighting that is coming from the bedroom down the hall? The kids seem blissfully unaware of the marital infidelities and emotional cruelty their parents inflict on each other! Real kids would be traumatized and upset by what is going on in this house (not to mention asthmatic, because of all the smoking their parents do)!Yes, Anne Bancroft gives a good performance. But the movie is so dismal, it's no wonder Julie Andrews got the Oscar for "Mary Poppins." If you were an Academy voter, which would you choose? "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" or *this* depressing downer?

It seems I have always been aware of this movie...it's strange title was one I'd heard even as a kid. But I only recently saw it for the first time, some 46 years after it was made.This strange little drama, written by Harold Pinter, has a performance by Anne Bancroft that is simply astounding. Beautiful and full of life, she is absolutely riveting in this part. Peter Finch is sly and attractive as her husband, and the two are extremely plausible as conflicted, complicated lovers.The movie is nicely shot, directed with obvious care and attention to detail, and the writing has an odd, menacing, off-kilter vitality. But it's Bancroft's remarkably strong and beautiful performance that makes this unmissable.

A very interesting portrait of mental illness in the 1960's. I would trust no one other than Pinter with this task given the period.As I heard depression was a word unspoken during this period. The film also gave interesting tints of the sixties but in terms of the mental health I would have liked it if Harold pinter gave more detail. But certainly it was true that Jo Armitage wasn't falling over herself to commit suicide. There was a certain element of ennui in terms of mental illness that certainly isn't present in today's films.I thoroughly enjoyed this latter aspect and am still looking for its turn of the millennium parallel...

Directed by Jack Clayton (Room at the Top)and written by Harold Pinter, this movie is more a study than a story. It shows the memorable Anne Bancroft as the mother of eight children in a comfortable neighbourhood of London. The family benefits from the inherited wealth of the mother, who wears the finest of clothing and shops at Herrods. She dotes on her children but still has time for what appears to be a healthy marriage. Along comes her third husband (Peter Finch), who is at first entirely comfortable with the chaotic home life, but gradually drifts apart from his wife, whose time is taken up by her children. He falls into infidelity and his wife becomes seriously depressed. How this is resolved is the subject of the movie, if in fact marital conflict can ever be "resolved". The cinematography is stunning and the film cleverly works in a rather awkward party where Bancroft is moving from one guest to another amid the drunken gibberish. The on-location shooting in London and in the countryside are absolutely superb. James Mason is a professional colleague and Maggie Smith has a bit part as a dim-witted nanny. Sir Cedric Hardwicke has a brief cameo as the maternal grandfather. This was his last film. Anne Bancroft's breakdown while shopping is a powerful scene and extremely well executed. All in all, an unusual film but one that most movie buffs would want to see.