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The L-Shaped Room [1962]
![The L-Shaped Room [1962]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XPZmyDQ7L._SL160_.jpg)
Forbes' dialogue sometimes grates, the film risks running into a dead end (Fosset is stuck with nowhere to go and no prospects), but this is compelling fare all the same. Cameraman Douglas Slocombe (who went on to shoot Raiders of the Lost Ark) makes the boarding house seem as gloomy and oppressive as a Gothic mansion. Forbes doesn't sentimentalise at all. The London he portrays is nothing like the swinging, hedonistic city shown in later British movies of the 60s. --Geoffrey Macnab
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
The L-Shaped Room, adapted by writer-director Bryan Forbes from Lynne Reid Banks' novel, unfolds in a dank, depressing London boarding house. Leslie Caron plays Jane Fosset, a 27-year-old French woman, down on her luck, who takes a room. There are bugs in her mattress. The taps drip. The landlady ("the lovely Doris") is a drunken, malicious busybody. Forbes doesn't paint the English in a flattering light. They're covetous, eccentric and xenophobic. "I never close my door to the nigs," Doris tells Fosset, as if to prove that she is no racist. When Fosset reveals that she's pregnant and unmarried, everybody turns against her. The one real friend Fosset makes is Toby (Tom Bell), an impoverished would-be writer who lives in the room downstairs. She starts an affair with him, but for all his protestations to the contrary, he too turns out to be moralistic and conservative--he can't accept the idea that she is having another man's baby.
Was This Ever So?
Review date: 2008-10-21 Rating: 6 out of 10
I have not read the book (though my wife has). We watched this rather long film (well it seems long) and came to the conclusion that it was a bit forced, though I liked the contrast between the attitudes of the two girl tenants at the end, the one seeing all the oddballs or outsiders in the rented out house as individuals worth knowing, the other seeing them as people to avoid! Worth seeing once for a view of London circa 1961 --film was released '62)-- which seemed long ago to me who lived there (and sometimes lived in rented rooms there) from 1976 and off and on into the 90's. The one thing that never changes is that "property owners", whether nice, nasty or whatever, or still parasites! And also, that rented rooms in London are really not a civilized place to live!
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Reviews
classic British cinema
Review date: 2008-04-30 Rating: 10 out of 10
Optimum Films has given us the great gift of a beautiful, widescreen transfer of this outstanding film. The photography is stunning, the acting first-rate, and the story compelling. Peter Katin's soulful rendition of Brahm's Piano Concerto in D Minor accompanies, and complements, the touching story throughout.
Leslie Caron is perfect as 27-year-old Jane, a young French woman who finds lodgings in a seedy London rooming house. Next door to her L-shaped attic room is Johnny, a West Indian jazz musician. Downstairs is Toby (Tom Bell in his most memorable role), an aspiring writer. Avis Bunnage is the feisty Cockney landlady and Cicely Courtneidge is an over-the-hill music hall performer. A veritable treasure-trove of delightful English character actors populate their dysfunctional familial world.
The story centers around the shaky romance of Jane and Toby. She is remarkably independent for a woman of that era (1962 was just the dawning of women's rights). Tom Bell is achingly handsome, and utterly winning in his low-key, self-effacing, but determined pursuit of his neighbor. He wins her over, but then takes off when informed that Jane is pregnant by another man. If there is a false note in the film, it is Johnny's curious `morality' (especially for a jazz musician), and his spitefulness in telling Toby of the baby. But he too is in love with Toby.
We want so much for the beautiful couple to be together, the non-committal ending comes as something of a relief. At least we can hope for their future happiness.
A disappointing take on the book
Review date: 2003-03-06 Rating: 4 out of 10
Adapted from the book of the same name, Brian Forbes changes the English Jane Graham into the French Jane Fosset in order to allow for the morals of the time - it was understandable that an unmarried French woman might fall pregnant but it was felt that the audience would not feel sympathy for an English woman who had had sex outside of marriage. By changing this one issue, Forbes has altered much of the story. The main point of the book was the fact that Jane had slept with one man her whole life and was having to pay for it for the rest of her life. This is completely left out of the film. At the end of the novel there is a reconcilliation with her father, and indeeed it is her relationship with her father that is put under the spotlight in the novel. Jane comes to understand that their relationship was flawed because they both refused to understand the others motives, and that if she continues the pattern it will affect all her relationships. The important issue of whether the prisons we live in are society enforced or placed ther by ourselves is lacking from the film and it often feels as though the fear of the censors has made Forbes overly cautious (when you compare that at the same time films such as Room at the Top, A Taste of Honey and A KInd of Loving, all much more explicit, were being released).
However, this said, Leslie Caron puts in a fine performance as Jane and the other actors are all accomplished and likeable. As a story on its own it is enjoyable and interesting. As an adaptation of a brilliant book it disappoints.
Product Details/Specifications
Artist(s):
Lynne Reid Banks
Bryan Forbes
Actor(s):
Leslie Caron
Tom Bell
Anthony Booth
Brock Peters
Pat Phoenix
Creators:
Leslie Caron (Primary Contributor)
Anthony Booth (Primary Contributor)
Lynne Reid Banks (Writer)
Bryan Forbes (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: Optimum Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Optimum Home Entertainment
EAN: 5060034579021
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2007-06-04
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 120 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1962-11-20
Language: English (Original Language)