Whenever any discussion about the 1963 film This Sporting Life and its leading stars Rachel Roberts, Richard Harris, and director Lindsay Anderson begins, the film always seems to get lumped into a group of slap-you-slap-me class-bound, anger-driven rebellious dramas that came out of the same period; notably films like Room at the Top, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

These comparisons are certainly worth considering: but, a recent re-release of the film thanks to Park Circus shows a far more subtle, detailed and intuitive film, communicating its message as much by what is not said, as by what is. The film deals with the life of a young rugby player, Frank Machin, played by Harris, who lodges with a recently widowed mother Margaret, excellently played by Rachel Roberts, and her two children. As Frank moves up in the rugby world, and becomes a professional, he becomes increasingly frustrated at his powerlessness off the field: the management of the rugby team (including Arthur Lowe of Dad’s Army fame) ultimately take a set against him, and, at home, he rails at Margaret’s reluctance to stop grieving for her dead husband, wanting her to love him instead.

On face value, these themes look simple, and certainly politically appropriate to a Lindsay Anderson film: on one level they show Frank simply as a victim of economic and social forces beyond his control. He is shown to gain some money, and, he thinks, with it some respect – only to then lose it all. What makes the film durable and not out of date today is the performances of the leading actors: rather than remaining mute, Harris is adept at playing the ‘prowling tiger’ – strolling around every scene with a gritted, determined look; as the owner of the football club remarks ‘he can’t keep still, not on the pitch nor off it’. Roberts is similar, and in this, both leading actors owe a lot to the American cinema of the time. When he is told off he responds physically: in one scene he nonchantly puts his feet up on a chair in a posh restaurant once he can afford it. Later, in a memorable scene, he sings a sad winsome song on a small stage in a pub, keeping his arms crossed throughout.

Anderson weaves this mournful, melancholic undertow throughout the film, and combined with the subtle acting, makes what might have been a simple political theme seem quite even-handed: ultimately Frank can’t communicate well, he is frustrated at this, and his body language, his wild punches, raised voice, and air of doomed melancholy may have as much to do with his downfall as with the forces that conspire around him. This subtlety makes the film well worth a second look. The extent of Harris’s later roles also prompt the sort of inter-movie-character-question that only this sad geek at maddog could possibly indulge in: what might his Dumbledore have told Frank?

Something along the lines of ‘Get a life, and don’t watch too many films?’. Possibly…

Words > Stephen Sharock