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Georgy Girl Reviews

Even that sense of discomfort, of puzzlement, evaporates, because it is all made trivial -- Georgy’s pain as well as her bright remarks.

Full Review | Sep 19, 2023

Georgy Girl is from the life's-a-giggle school of comedy, and Lynn Redgrave larks about non-stop, exhibiting a talent for mimicry with overtones of Joyce Grenfell.

Full Review | Jun 27, 2019

A charming comedy reflecting the mores of the 1960s swinging London, Georgy Girl has not dated particularly well, but the acting is good, particularly Lynn Redgrave in the lead and James Mason in the supporting role.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Feb 1, 2011

An empty film posing as something more substantial.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Mar 25, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 30, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 27, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 13, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 30, 2003

Classic British Invasion flick with a slightly sour tone.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 16, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 22, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 26, 2002

Kinetic direction, crisp black and white photography, pop music, urban realism, social issues, and contemporary attitudes towards sex

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

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Georgy Girl

The role of a gawky ungainly plain Jane [in this adaptation of the novel by Margaret Forster] is a natural for Lynn Redgrave's talents, and she frequently overwhelms her costars by sheer force of personality.

By Variety Staff

Variety Staff

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The role of a gawky ungainly plain Jane [in this adaptation of the novel by Margaret Forster] is a natural for Lynn Redgrave ‘s talents, and she frequently overwhelms her costars by sheer force of personality.

She’s sharing a slovenly apartment with an attractive, brittle and promiscuous girl friend (Charlotte Rampling). And whenever a lover is being entertained in the communal bedroom, Redgrave takes herself off to the home of her parents’ wealthy employer. Girl friend becomes pregnant, opts for marriage instead of another abortion, but when mother-to-be is in hospital, husband (Alan Bates) realizes he chose the wrong girl.

James Mason , as the wealthy employer, attempts to adopt a father figure in relations to the girl, but is actually nothing more than a conventional old roue.

Redgrave has a pushover of a part, and never misses a trick to get that extra yock, whether it’s her first passionate encounter with Alan Bates or her fielding of Mason’s amorous overtures.

Popular on Variety

1966: Nominations: Best Actress (Lynn Redgrave), Supp. Actor (James Mason), B&W Cinematography, Song (‘Georgy Girl’)

Production: Columbia. Director Silvio Narizzano; Producer Robert A. Goldston, Otto Plaschkes; Screenplay Margaret Forster, Peter Nichols; Camera Ken Higgins; Editor John Bloom; Music Alexander Faris; Art Director Tony Woollard
Crew: (B&W) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1966. Running time: 100 MIN.
With: James Mason Alan Bates Lynn Redgrave Charlotte Rampling Rachel Kempson Bill Owen

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Georgy Girl

Photos & Videos

Film Details

Articles & Reviews

Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, silvio narizzano, james mason, lynn redgrave, charlotte rampling, photos & videos, technical specs.

Georgy Parkin is a plump and somewhat forlorn creature who partially disapproves of her parents working as servants in the palatial London home of middle-aged James Leamington and his ailing, forever-complaining wife. Resigned to her fate as one of life's misfits, Georgy shares a flat with a beautiful but cold and amoral violinist named Meredith, who regards Georgy as little more than an unobtrusive convenience who keeps the apartment neat and tidy. In return, Georgy is able to share vicariously in Meredith's numerous love affairs, particularly a long-standing affair with Jos, a madcap Cockney. One day, to her astonishment, Georgy is informed by Mr. Leamington that he would like her to become his mistress and that he has taken the trouble to have legal papers drawn up on their "agreement." Georgy, however, chooses to remain a virginal observer in her flat with Meredith, who reveals that she has become pregnant for the third time by Jos. On the previous occasions Meredith had undergone abortions, but this time Jos persuades her to marry him and have his child. Georgy is thrilled to stay on at the flat and keep house for them. While Meredith is at the hospital giving birth, Jos--first playfully, then seriously--seduces Georgy, and in the days that follow they live together idyllically. Consequently, when Meredith, who intends to put her unwanted baby up for adoption, learns of the love between Georgy and Jos, she gladly turns the infant over to them and blithely returns to her former life. For a time Georgy and Jos are happy, but Jos soon becomes restless and a little annoyed at Georgy's lavishing all of her love upon the baby. In an attempt to regain Georgy's undivided love, Jos takes her on a boat trip and clowns about pathetically in the hope they can recapture their lighthearted intimacy. Both realize, however, that something has gone out of their love, and when Jos eventually moves out, Georgy knows that the authorities will soon come and take her beloved baby away from her. All is not lost, however; for Mr. Leamington, whose wife has since died, comes to the rescue. If Georgy will marry him, he will adopt the child. Mr. Leamington thus wins his "Georgy Girl," and Georgy happily keeps her baby and prepares for a life of upper-class matrimonial comfort.

Clare Kelly

Rachel kempson, denise coffey, dorothy alison, peggy thorpe-bates, dandy nichols, terence soall, jolyan booth, peter allwork, alexander faris, harold fletcher, margaret forster, betty glasow, robert goldston, ken higgins, brian hunter, carl mannin, wally milner, peter nichols, george pitcher, otto plaschkes, nolan roberts, marjory sigley, tom springfield, tony woollard, photo collections.

Award Nominations

Best actress, best cinematography, best supporting actor, georgy girl - georgy girl.

Georgy Girl on DVD

Rachel kempson, 1910-2003, sir alan bates (1934-2003).

I'll tell you what this pregnancy's taught me: It's taught me to look like the back end of a bus and sit around every night with nothing to do! - Meredith

Vanessa Redgrave backed out of the role of Georgy just before shooting started. Lynn Redgrave (her sister) picked it up.

Opened in London in October 1966.

Miscellaneous Notes

Lynn Redgrave voted Best Actress of the Year (tie with Elizabeth Taylor) by the 1966 New York Film Critics Association.

The United Kingdom

Voted One of the Year's Ten Best Films by the 1966 National Board of Review and the 1966 New York Times Film Critics.

Released in United States 2000

Released in United States Fall November 1966

Released in USA on video.

Released in United States 2000 (Shown in New York City (Film Forum) as part of program "The British New Wave: From Angry Young Men to Swinging London" October 27 - November 16, 2000.)

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Georgy Girl Review

17 Oct 1966

100 minutes

Georgy Girl

Although the swinging London scene has come to represent the popular image of 1960s Britain, the majority of people endured a far more humdrum reality. Everyday life felt more like a Wednesday Play than an Austin Powers picture and this adaptation of Margaret Foster's novel cleverly draws on contemporary movies for its tone.

In many ways, it's the female flip side of Alfie, with Georgy taking a more responsible attitude to relationships, and the suburban counterbalance to Darling, with Georgy similarly caught between an older mentor and a younger suitor who may not be as suitable as he seems. There's even a hint of A Taste of Honey and such tele-dramas as Cathy Come Home and Up the Junction in the story's discussion of gender, class and morality. Yet, James Mason's presence also draws comparisons with Lolita and Spring And Port Wine, with the latter's sense of stern patriarchy recurring in Bill Owen's martinet father.

But, regardless of its myriad influences, Georgy Girl very much has its own character, thanks to Lynn Redgrave's Oscar-nominated performance. Her good-hearted, self-doubting acceptance of everyone else's foibles and failings makes her irresistibly attractive. Yet director Silvio Narizzano never wholly demonises the other members of the central quartet, despite the seediness of Mason's machinations, the delusional hopelessness of Alan Bates's daydreams and the selfish hedonism of Charlotte Rampling's reckless response to the baby that Redgrave ends up rearing as her own.

It may have its roots firmly in the Kitchen Sink tradition, but this also reflects the social aspiration encouraged by Harold Wilson's Labour government. Consequently, it embraces the manners and mores of the celebrity set (the debuting Rampling, for example, was dressed by happening designer, Mary Quant), while also recognising the options that newly emancipated women were becoming less afraid to take. It's certainly a film long overdue reappraisal.

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Georgy girl.

Directed by Silvio Narizzano

Georgy Girl is BIG!

A homely but vivacious young woman dodges the amorous attentions of her father's middle-aged employer while attempting to please her glamorously stuck-up roommate Meredith.

Lynn Redgrave James Mason Alan Bates Charlotte Rampling Bill Owen Clare Kelly Rachel Kempson Denise Coffey Dorothy Alison Peggy Thorpe-Bates Dandy Nichols Terence Soall Jolyon Booth

Director Director

Silvio Narizzano

Producers Producers

Otto Plaschkes Robert A. Goldston George Pitcher Clive Reed

Writers Writers

Margaret Forster Peter Nichols

Original Writer Original Writer

Margaret Forster

Editor Editor

Cinematography cinematography.

Kenneth Higgins

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Michael Stevenson

Art Direction Art Direction

Tony Woollard

Composers Composers

Alexander Faris Tom Springfield

Everglades Productions Columbia Pictures

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

Italian English

Releases by Date

25 jun 1966, 04 aug 1966, 17 oct 1966, 24 nov 1966, releases by country.

Premiere Berlin International Film Festival
Theatrical 15
Theatrical NR

99 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Sean Baker 4

I didn't know anything about this film. Indicator put out a Blu-ray so I checked it out. I was immediately enraptured by the theme song and opening title sequence. Found the film to be a very interesting character study and time capsule of London's Swinging Sixties. Love the B&W cinematography by Kenneth Higgins (The Virgin Soldiers) who unfortunately didn't shoot much in his career. All the performances are great however Charlotte Rampling steals the show for me.

Watched the Indicator Blu-ray.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Audio commentary with Diabolique magazine’s editor-in-chief Kat Ellinger • The Guardian Interview with Charlotte Rampling (2001, 59 mins): an archival audio recording of a career-spanning interview conducted by Christopher Cook at London’s…

Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★ 4

"...Of course, if it were made now, Georgy needn’t opt for compromise, as single-parent families are much more accepted in modern society, but it’s important to remember that in the 1960s such a life was near impossible. That’s why I cannot agree with the negativity some heap upon this film. I can see why it would be more satisfying to see Georgy defy society by realising her own self-worth and maternal capabilities enough to abandon Joss, jilt Leamington and head off into the sunset with the baby, but around the corner would be the very same social workers who tore the children from Carol White’s arms in Cathy Come Home, because that’s what life was like then. By all means,…

Review by Dylan ★★★★½

A pleasant, slice-of-life look at self-discovery. Every interaction has a charming warmth that beautifully combines humor, drama, and romance, which makes the film's plot flow naturally and smoothly. Lynn Redgrave is utterly alluring as she consistently combines endearing comedic timing with witty dramatic readings to give her character likability and seamless humor. Both Alan Bates and Charlotte Rampling also manage to turn in scene stealing performances. Truly, a lovely experience.

Review by Jack Often ★★★ 2

A movie I've known about seemingly from birth thanks to the song, but had never seen. I loved Charlotte Rampling even though we're meant to hate her. Alan Bates is cute but aggravating. Lynn Redgrave as Georgy is built to be endearing but wore out her welcome for me. Mason's famous lechers and cretins precede him. The style is pleasingly loose but not that remarkable compared to what the rest of British cinema was doing at the time. I'm confounded by the attitude of the ending. Redgrave has said in an interview that she considers Georgy to be manipulative, despite her quirky wrapping. I can sort of see it but the end of the film doesn't feel premeditated to me,…

Review by Sally Jane Black

The theme song (which I have heard long before I even knew this was a movie) is so upbeat and airy that it would never have occurred to me that this is what the movie would be like. Vicious, stupid, unpleasant, the film follows the daughter of two clueless servants as she reacts to the world around her rather than engage with it. It is implied that all she wants to do is work with children and maybe have one of her own, but she never really speaks up about what she wants. Her face lights up at babies, but other than that, she's just kinda there to react to her capricious roommate (the film has a special hatred for…

Review by Mark Costello ★★★★½

There's a completely different version of Silvio Narizzano's exploration of the swinging sixties that wallows in the inherent sadness of it all...the delve into toxic relationships, be they between an older man and his desperation to sate his inappropriate sexual predilections, or they between two 'friends' whose need for the other to satisfy something in themselves leads to mental anguish and abuse...the look at the new social norms that were leading to babies being born to those little more than babes themselves and with none of the sense of responsibility that should come with parenthood...and a peek behind the curtain of the most grooviest of times, that was really only groovy for the pretty and the privileged, with everyone else…

Review by williamfaeleith ★★★★½

"Hey there, Georgy girl, Swinging down the street so fancy free, Nobody you meet could ever see The loneliness there, inside you."

That classic opening sequence through swinging London will surely have you whistling as we're introduced to big, dowdy Georgy played perfectly by Lynn Redgrave. She's a little insecure and lacking in confidence but is trying to get what she wants out of life even though it doesn't seem to value her. Her flatmate Meredith (Charlotte Rampling) is the complete opposite - slim, attractive, dressed in the latest fashions, cool and confident but is a selfish bitch. Meredith's long-term, but not exclusive, boyfriend Jos (Alan Bates) is nicer but still selfish and very randy. Her father (Bill Owen) is…

Review by Vanina ★★★

How anyone escaped the 60s with their sanity in tact I'll never know.

That song and the poster have to be the two most misleading film advertisements in existence - I was expecting this to be quite joyous but it had me desperately sad by the end.

Lynn Redgrave is fantastic as a slightly offbeat 22-year-old who is constantly overlooked in favour of her Mary Quant-clad roommate Charlotte Rampling. James Mason must have decided to just play ultra creepy guys in the later stages of his career and Alan Bates is of course beyond stunning, but also completely miscast as a vapid 60s lad. I'm a bit lost about whether this was intended as a takedown of the Swinging Sixties…

Review by phoebe 💫 ★★★½ 4

Essentially, if there’s a movie about a swinging sixties girl (with the notable exception of Darling ), I am going to completely attach my personality to them. They’re all so positive and hyper and awkward and slightly detached from what’s going on around them while still wanting very much to have fun. I love watching them run around, trying to get their lives together, especially if they’re played by Rita Tushingham or Lynn Redgrave and feature a dazzling selection of Mary Quant minidresses. There’s a bit of a dark turn in this one considering Georgy’s father’s employer has been trying to groom her for years with her dad’s knowledge (EEYIKES) but he ends up being very benign, and Georgy herself is so magnificent that you never doubt she’ll be perfectly okay.

Review by nora ★★★½ 4

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

i love the kind of obnoxious mid-60s british performance/humor in this that sort of recalls HARD DAY'S NIGHT, even though i feel like at times it makes the emotional core feel more remote. however i'm dying over how THE GRADUATE seems to have ripped off the ending of this film on some level. i adore alan bates and lynn redgrave sm and i love how this is basically the swinging 60s version of a lubitsch throuple movie lol

Review by Kevin Jacobsen ★★★★

I think what she really needed was a gay best friend

Review by Jonathan White ★★★★½ 4

My parents, like most parents in North America, were avid watchers of The Ed Sullivan Show. One of my earliest memories was my Dad coming home from work and, ruffling my hair, and exclaiming ‘you’re starting to look like a Beatle!’ I quizzically responded in the quizzical way a four year old does …. ‘What’s a Beatle?’ My Dad came back, well, you’ll see this Sunday … they’re on the Ed Sullivan show. That Sunday my world was changed. Since that point I’d keep a keen ear peeled for when Ed mentioned that ‘here’s something for the youngsters’.

Flash forward a few years and it’s spring 1967. We had just pulled up and moved the previous summer to live in…

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Cast & Crew

Georgy Girl Reviews

1 hr 40 mins
Drama, Comedy
Watchlist Where to Watch

Best Actress nominee Lynn Redgrave stars as an unlucky-at-love Londoner who is on the horns of a dilemma when she is being pursued by her father's employer, as well as the lover of her promiscuous pregnant roommate.

A heart-tugger. Redgrave is Georgy, a chubby virgin in her early 20s suffering from a lack of self-esteem. Her parents are servants employed by Mason, a well-to-do married man who never sired any children. Through the years Mason has treated Redgrave like a daughter, but as she grows older his affection changes, and he eventually asks her to become his mistress. Rampling, Redgrave's sensual but patronizing roommate, announces she's pregnant by her new lover, Bates. Redgrave and Bates meet and fall in love, which spurs Rampling to declare she's going to give up the child for adoption. Redgrave will not hear of this and becomes the baby's surrogate mother. By picture's end, Redgrave is impaled on the horns of a dilemma: should she marry Bates, should she just keep the baby, or should she marry the conveniently widowed Mason and keep the baby? Mason is wonderful as the older man, harried by a nagging, sickly wife. Redgrave shot to stardom in this role, and rightly so. She shows her range as she grows from a self-conscious, uncertain waif to a woman with responsibilities. A charming movie that aided the careers of all concerned, GEORGY GIRL was also helped by the Oscar-nominated title song, which became a hit for the Seekers on two continents.

Cast & crew
User reviews

Georgy Girl

A traditional girl (Lynn Redgrave) resists the advances of a swinger (James Mason) who wants her as his mistress in 1960s London.
A homely but vivacious young woman dodges the amorous attentions of her father's middle-aged employer while striving to capture some of the glamorous life of her swinging London roommate. — Rick Ferncase <[email protected]>
Georgy has resigned herself to being one of life's accidents. She disapproves somewhat of her father's butlering James Leamington. She's tall, plump, sloppy, and wistfully envious of what she conceives to be the life led by her beautiful, but icy roommate. Where her roommate, Meredith, is cool and calculating, Georgy gets so involved with the people around her she behaves like an affectionate puppy. Most of all, she burns to be a mother. But it is Meredith that is in the hospital having an unwanted child. — filmfactsman
Twenty-two-year-old Georgina Parkin, Georgy to her friends, is a Plain Jane of a woman who beats to her own drummer. She grew up in the household of wealthy James Leamington, Georgy's parents being the household domestics. Middle-aged Leamington, who had provided for Georgy's every need while she was growing up, offers Georgy a business proposition, all written in a formal contract. He will provide for her whatever she wants if she becomes his mistress. She never really directly provides him with an answer. Meanwhile, Georgy shares a flat with Meredith Montgomery, a beautiful, but self-absorbed woman. Partying all the time without him, Meredith is dating Jos Jones, who hangs around with Georgy while Meredith is out partying. Jos and Georgy have a good time together. Georgy secretly loves her flatmate's boyfriend. Solely out of boredom, Meredith, who is pregnant with Jos' child, proposes she keep this one (she's previously had two abortions without much thought on the matter) and that she and Jos get married. The plan is for Jos to move into the flat, then Georgy is free to do as she pleases. As Meredith's pregnancy progresses, and after the baby arrives, the life of Georgy, Jos, and Leamington adjust to accommodate the change. By choice, Meredith's life is the one that doesn't. — Huggo
Georgy (Lynn Redgrave) appears to be heading for spinsterhood: She's well past "marrying age", is overweight and frumpy, and her parents have low expectations of her. However, her natural ability and empathy with children make her shine. Mr. Leamington, her father's boss (James Mason), is stuck in a loveless marriage with a sickly wife (Rachel Kempson) and believes he has found a lonely woman in Georgy whom he can set up as his mistress. Some of the most clever scenes are when Georgy successfully stiff-arms Mr. Leamington and keeps him at bay. She is at her most vulnerable juxtaposed with her pretty roommate, Meredith (Charlotte Rampling), a tramp who has had many boyfriends and abortions. When Meredith turns up pregnant once again and decides to have the baby, Georgy's path in life becomes clear even to Georgy, despite a coming-of-age detour with Meredith's boyfriend-cum-husband Jos (Alan Bates).

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Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

Top Ten Lists

GEORGY GIRL

Post author: eenableadmin
Post published: August 5, 2019
Post category: Uncategorized

GEORGY GIRL ( director: Silvio Narizzano; screenwriters: novel by Margaret Forster/Margaret Forster/Peter Nichols; cinematographer: Kenneth Higgins; editor: John Bloom; music: Alexander Faris/Tom Springfield; cast: Lynn Redgrave (Georgy Parkin), Alan Bates (Jos Jones), James Mason (James Leamington), Charlotte Rampling (Meredith), Bill Owen (Ted Parkin), Clare Kelly (Doris Parkin), Rachel Kempson (Ellen Leamington); Runtime: 99; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Robert A. Goldston/Otto Plaschkes; Columbia; 1967-UK) “An empty film posing as something more substantial.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

The hit theme song sung by The Seekers tells in a nutshell the whole bittersweet story of Georgy Girl. Director Silvio Narizzano (“Blue”/”Loot”/”Fanatic”) sets the comedy/drama sexual shocker in the ‘Swinging London’ of the 1960s, in the midst of the ‘Sexual Revolution.’ It’s based on the novel by Margaret Forster and cowritten by Forster and Peter Nichols. Though considered bold at the time of its theater release, by today’s standards it’s tame and outdated. Also it relies too heavily on its shocks over promiscuity, its glibness and self-professed cleverness. In reality, it’s not much more than the fashion of the day–an empty film posing as something more substantial. Thanks to the splendid performances of the stars, the comedy of manners at least still retains enough bite, charm and comedy to get over as light entertainment.

Georgy Parkin (Lynn Redgrave) is a 22-year-old kindhearted but low self-esteemed, unattractive, overweight dance teacher, who has never been kissed. She’s living with her popular bitchy attractive concert playing violinist roommate Meredith (Charlotte Rampling), who takes pleasure constantly putting her down as a loser. The amoral and cynical Meredith is an unapologetic hedonist, who doesn’t give a damn about anyone else.

The married wealthy 49-year-old employer of Georgy’s servant parents, James Leamington (James Mason), who always looked fondly with paternal interest on the servant’s daughter, suddenly finds himself attracted to Georgy and asks her to sign a business contract to be his mistress.

Shortly afterward, the unmarried Meredith becomes pregnant. The father is one of her many boyfriends, the playful and irresponsible Jos (Alan Bates). He’s a flautist who works in a bank, but at heart is a slacker. Though Meredith aborted two of her other pregnancies, on a whim she decides to have the child and marry Jos. Georgy stays on in the flat as cook and housekeeper. During a bitter row between the trio in the cramped flat, Meredith leaves and Georgy and Jos kiss. It results in them falling in love.

When Meredith has her baby girl, she has a fit over being a mum and frets about from now on always being bothered caring for the brat. So she lets hubby, who is living with Georgy, keep the baby. Georgy radiantly glows in her new motherhood role. When the immature Jos decides this domestic scene isn’t his cup of tea, he splits. But Mr. Leamington saves day, as his nagging, sickly wife Ellen dies and the widow asks Georgy to marry him and if she accepts promises to adopt the child. Leamington now also has the child he always wanted, but wonders if having the child was a wise decision. It might not be true love on her part but the manipulative Georgy, who can only be fulfilled by motherhood, ruthlessly gets what she wants, as she marries a clueless millionaire who thinks with his penis.

REVIEWED ON 3/23/2009 GRADE: B-

Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”

A letter to three wives, port of call, go west young man.

My sincere apologies for this way overdue review. My paid work rate suddenly flared up and we ran into Christmas and well, you know. More apologies if the ridiculous title to this review is meaningless to you. Unless you are as old as I feel, you won't know who Mary Quant is and why her clothing designs were as emblematic of the 1960s as the Beatles were. The following lyric is woven throughout my pre-teen life almost as much as the Thunderbirds' 'Dun du-du-duh' main theme. " Hey there, Georgy girl. Swinging down the street so fancy-free. Nobody you meet could ever see the loneliness there inside you… " Written by the Carry On star (and Harry Potter US audio book voice artist) Jim Dale and performed by The Seekers and sung by Judith Durham (a Jennifer Lawrence lookalike in her youth) with a near-as-damnit perfect voice, the song zoomed past 'catchy' over fifty decades ago. This is the king of the ear-worms and if the song wasn't so damn nice and folksy, I'd probably resent it but no. Its movie lyrics (carefully altered for a single release back in the day) are actually pretty dark but that melody could soften an audiobook of Mein Kampf . So it's a thrill to be finally seeing the movie it was written for and a bigger thrill to find that said movie works so well.

In the mid sixties, as London was starting to swing (whatever in God's name that meant), Georgy is a down dressing, 'plain', slightly overweight and normal young woman. She's hopelessly awkward, spends money on ridiculous hair dos that she then washes out as soon as she can find a public loo with a sink, and returning home, this dowdy Bridget Jones transforms in the company of the right people – children, natural, honest, non-judgemental children. Revelling in creative play and the abandonment of all of her insecurities, she leads a group of pre-teens in many creative exercises. If you see this scene, imagine what it would take to re-educate adults to have as much honest fun as these children are having. I think that Sir Ken Robinson was oh so right when he said that we are educated out of creativity. Google his TED talks and get great insights on education. It's clear that every one in the room is having such a great time. I knew from this early scene that I was on Georgy's side and whatever hurdles she faced, I'd be supporting her. To make matters worse, her father, who is trying hard to make his own daughter live up to his own narrow definition of womanhood, underlines Georgy's outsider status in the family. In an utterly charming and disarming moment, she undercuts his efforts and merrily takes the piss out of him with an extemporaneous medley of different tunes on the piano, a playful soundtrack to her father's pomposity. We then move through her dealings with stunning but stupefyingly selfish flat-mates, flighty boyfriends and sugar daddies until she chooses to accept herself on her own terms and gets her way, of a sort. The ending of the film is somewhat contentious but I won't be spoiling that here even though it's worth a 'sexual politics themed paragraph' all of its own.

The actors are all having a ball. There is energy in the film that the cutting maintains but with such exuberant performances, it's sometimes necessary to slow things down a bit. Lynn Redgrave winningly plays Georgy in a role that almost defined her entire career. It's a tough ask for any actor to play dowdy. The entire film of The Devil Wears Prada was almost scuppered by asking a rational audience to accept that actress Anne Hathaway was a frumpy, unattractive mess. OK, with a fully coiffured Emily Blunt playing the beauty game next to her, the filmmakers were obviously trying their best but it takes a little more than a grey pullover to mask the evident appeal of this oddly maligned actress. Redgrave, whose more famous sister was first approached to play the role, found herself personally affected by it. In the movie she shares a flat with Meredith played by a frankly stunning Charlotte Rampling (I'm smitten, apologies) in her second credited of four roles thus far in her career. She was twenty-two and again, 60's London iconography would be the poorer without her participation but I'm not sure as a professional violinist she could afford all those Mary Quant designer outfits. She is very much cast as the opposite of Redgrave's Georgy but she's also pretty nasty. A good-time girl who seems over burdened with selfishness and self-regard, she was the perfect 'Heather' of her day. In fact, she could be regarded as the original 'Heather' albeit alone in her 'Heatherness' without obsequious acolytes. In short, she's a cast iron 'not nice' person. The word almost rhymes with 'beach' but I still can't use it with any confidence despite the fact I can label a man behaving badly as a bastard without breaking a sweat. Rampling's Meredith is everything self-serving about great beauty, the absurd idea that you win a genetic lottery and so automatically have carte blanche superiority over other people's feelings and needs. The best you could say about her is that she's always honest. Post birth, she's stunningly vile about her baby and about as unpleasant as a human being can be without committing actual violence. In between the two flat sharers exists a character, Jos, (an attractive if extra-fidgety Alan Bates) whom I uncomfortably recognise as too damn close to someone I know all too well. That constant need to be the centre of attention, that inexhaustible energy and surface charm that sends him to a children's playground briefly in love with the idea of becoming a father, riding a roundabout and then sliding down a slide and as he literally falls to Earth, his reality is sharply emphasised by a short gaze into a future he suddenly re-evaluates in the blink of an eye. He sees a stern man looking on disapprovingly with two young children (expertly cast). That's not the fatherhood he's looking for.

First billed is James Mason as the businessman James Leamington with a Rolls Royce and the dubious honour of being the first on screen character to my knowledge who openly grooms a young girl with the blatant ambition of seduction. James is decades older than Georgy. He's aided in this rather sordid desire by his butler who happens to be Georgy's hypercritical father. Played by Bill Owen, a few hundred miles from his most famous character, Compo in BBC TV's comedy flagship Last of the Summer Wine , we get the sense that Georgy's father, who dotes on Mason's character (more than is psychologically good for him) is severely conflicted. He wants Georgy married off but to his older boss? Mason, who took a drop in salary because he loved the story, plays the role with his original northern accent. It's a fairly dark part to play but Mason performs it admirably. There is a sense that he's going to pay for his interest in the younger woman by having to acquiesce to her desire to be a mother to someone else's unwanted child. This is given metaphorical weight by the pram he's forced to push up a staircase, helping Georgy prepare for her new arrival and the hordes of children he tries to navigate through on another staircase as they swarm from Georgy's drama class.

The film is full of small but potent gems. Planned or not, as a funeral line of black vehicles pulls away from the church, a dog on the right of frame sits impassively in the road and despite the roar of engines and close car movement, it stays defiantly put. At a registry office, Alan Bates lets two women in and then promptly walks into the door frame, a bit of business that would have seemed like the character just showing off but it's cut away from so smartly that we might give Bates the benefit of the doubt and think this to be a genuine moment of confusion. At a few minutes over the hour, editor John Bloom experiments with intercutting ever-decreasing timings of big close ups to indicate a spiral of potential intimacy. It's extremely effective, just one of Bloom's many contributions to the film not planned in advance by the director. This is why your editor has to be your best friend if only for the length of post-production.

I recently took delivery of an entire collection of the BFI's Monthly Film Bulletin from 1965 to 1991 so it seems a crime not to look up how this august organ reacted to Georgy Girl at the time. The specific publication, costing all of two shillings (10p at the time of decimalisation) but more like £1.67 in today's value, was December's issue. Listed in the index, the film gets relegated to the 'Shorter Notices' section where a single damning paragraph (with no writer's credit) awaits your attention…

"…It proceeds in triangular** jerks from scene to scene, linked tenuously and loudly by continuous snatches of music to keep the action going. The potentially excellent cast and the promising comedienne talent of Lynn Redgrave can do little in the face of such opposition from both script and direction."

**What? No, me neither.

Nevertheless, I beg, on my humble knees, to differ.

Presented in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, Georgy Girl looks solid even if its grading is not as strident with the contrast as other black and white restorations. It's also a tiny percentage softer and grainier but this again never detracts from the drama on offer. There are a few night sequences where the shadow detail is still evident, the specifics of which I may have been happy to sacrifice for a more dynamic black and white. I'm a sucker for contrast but again, it hardly mars the film.

The original mono soundtrack is rendered with great fidelity with nothing hard to discern and nothing recorded and mixed inexpertly.

There are new and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Audio commentary with Diabolique magazine's editor-in-chief Kat Ellinger This is a terrific commentary with a more rolling political edge, one that does the film proud. Ellinger's early insight that characters are deepened in novels by their revealed inner lives and have a rough ride without that interior voice in movies is a brilliant point as it refers to all filmed books. Meredith (Charlotte Rampling) is the vilest creature despite her heavenly good looks and in the movie, she is vilified rather than understood as she may have been more on a page. It's Cordelia's path through Buffy but stopping short of showing any humanity whatsoever. Apparently, body conscious Lynn (the face of 60's Weightwatchers) wanted to become a comedian to escape her own body. Our so-named civilised society is anything but when it comes to gender expectations. Ellinger also remarks on how subversive and confrontational the film is with the throwaway but devastating line from Meredith to Jos, "Got rid of two of yours already," referring to two abortions, a line that may have slapped the 'X' certificate on the film before a square inch of flesh was revealed. Jos and his new kind of masculinity is mentioned (it was new at the time, a sort of sixties metrosexual). We get a heartfelt appreciation of Dandy Nichols (Elsie Garnett of course from the classic sitcom Til Death Do Us Part ). The news that Peter Wyngarde and Alan Bates lived together and may have been lovers was an eye-opener to me. Ellinger mentions that Georgy is far from a victim in the final moments of the film, which I will not spoil and she suggests that she may be manipulating all those concerned to get her own way. An anti-romance romance film just about sums up Ellinger's take at the end of a terrific, lively and informative commentary.

The Guardian Interview with Charlotte Rampling (2001): an archival audio recording of a career-spanning interview conducted by Christopher Cook at London's National Film Theatre (59' 56") Rampling is erudite, engaging and informative. She's certainly not too talkative, often answering questions with brief answers which allows there to be a few dead patches where the obviously smitten Christopher Cook was expecting a little more detail. Of note from the interview, Rampling talks about learning the art of being still on screen, an art that few actors have perfected. You can then channel your performance through your eyes. She talks about working with a plethora of Europe's finest directors and the best bit of advice from Dirk Bogarde (even if you're exhausted, never show it. You may be asked to do a minute's scene of a shot that will be eternal on film so you always have to be ready to shine). Rampling is not a fan of rehearsals and never done any research. She "…dares to believe it's in me… Hasn't been too bad, has it?" she says of a wonderful career. Cook is outed as a Zardoz fan and Rampling is surprised it's the one film of her career he picks. She represented Woody Allen's 'ideal woman' and found Paul Newman to be an "exquisite human being." She warmed to success indicating that a performance must have made real contact if so many people pitch up and pay for their ticket. Not a garrulous interviewee but a considered one. Swift to laugh and make fun of her image, she is nonetheless very self aware or rather aware of her gifts as an actress and as a corollary comes across as supremely self-confident. But then this could be the result of great acting.

The Tempo of the Time (2018): a new interview with author, playwright and co-screenwriter Peter Nichols (7' 14") The famed playwright of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg describes how he was brought in to rewrite the original novelist Margaret Forster's first draft. He describes the heady style of filmmaking in the mid to late sixties – fast cutting as typified by commercials and the directors who moved from advertising to features. It was a style in which 'meaning' was a difficult commodity to communicate, fun to watch but the difference between popcorn and a three course meal. Good writers like three course meals... Nichols talks about how Alan Bates and his contemporaries couldn't keep still… "It went on for about ten years, a crazy time!"

A Wonderful Sense of Freedom (2018): editor John Bloom discusses his work on the film (28' 20") It's always a thrill to hear the editor's point of view, the craftsperson that is crucial to the success of the emotional power of a film. Bloom is of course (or was as the director is alas no longer with us) the film editor of choice of Sir Richard Attenborough and edited his films Magic and Ghandi . Bloom says that the director of Georgy Girl Silvio Narizzano gave him enormous freedom. An older editor chose to take a directing opportunity, a choice that paved the way for 31 year-old Bloom to try his luck. Safe to say that the success of the film didn't do Bloom's career any damage at all. He delineates the almost forced creative marriage that exists between a director and editor and what an extraordinary marriage it can be. Having said that he grew to dislike dissolves or mixes. This is a film editor after my own heart. Bloom takes us through certain scenes and the decisions made on how they were cut. He remembers telling the producer that losing Vanessa Redgrave due to schedules and gaining sister Lynn was a blessing in disguise. I'd never realised (until Kat Ellinger's commentary and this extra) that James Mason was a northerner and could at last, use his original accent in a part. Bloom also underlines Walter Murch's dictum that continuity comes low on the importance of editorial decision-making and that emotion overrules everything. There's a heart-warming Columbia executive story and a nod to the huge technological upheaval that occurred in the late 80s that changed the way we edit forever. On his editing practice, Bloom quotes Lena Horne on her own art and craft… "I just sort of stand there and just sort of do it…" Editing is so hard to get a handle on because you cannot teach instinct. Every movie is a prototype so therefore every editor's job is utterly mysterious and instinctive. You 'feel' what's not right and almost know for certain when something works… God, I love editing. Georgy's Geography (2018): a new interview with art director Tony Woollard (3' 02") Just a short catch up chat with Georgy Girl 's BAFTA nominated art director. Woollard describes the slightly different craft of designing for a black and white or colour film and points out that his director was great to work with. This is obviously a small extract from a much longer interview presumably to be used as an extra on whatever movie Woollard worked on that's getting a Blu-ray release.

Going for a Song (2018): lyricist Jim Dale and editor John Bloom reveal the origins of Georgy Girl's famous theme song (5' 10") Editor and lyricist take us through the evolution of the king of the earworms, the main theme to Georgy Girl . It's fascinating to hear that editor John Bloom laid the main theme to Funny Girl as a temp. That main theme, mood-wise could not be further than the happy-go-lucky, whistley folk smash hit that ended up in its place. For Bloom, this must have gone from a T-bone steak to a marshmallow. But he got over his initial reluctance and was beaten into submission by its energy and outstanding popularity.

Original radio spot (00' 31") A straightforward US 30 second radio ad for the movie… "This year's Darling …" referencing the film that came a year earlier starring Julie Christie.

Original theatrical trailer (2' 32") This one's a real curio… salacious, saucy (as we Brits say) and with more than a tad of misrepresentation. Focussing on Redgrave, we fly through the film as if she was picking up and discarding partners over the trailer's running time. Charlotte Rampling gets pasted as a bad girl the moment we clap eyes on her and Alan Bates reveals his playful side stripping as he pursues Georgy through the streets and underpasses of London. I have no clue what the average punter thinks they'd be getting but the music edits in the last ten seconds are rather alarming including a lyrical spoiler of a sort.

Image gallery: promotional photography and publicity material Here we find 17 black and white production stills and 2 (shown on one screen) publicity shots of Alan Bates. Then on one screen are two posters, an Italian version and a US 'quote' poster featuring pertinent lines from all sorts of glowing reviews. Finally we get the US release poster with the image of the carefree girl (I've not been able to find a photographic model of the artwork and I submit that this is not a faithful rendition of Lynn Redgrave in the part). There's a Frances Ha poster feel to the image, which I like but while Greta Gerwig just happened to be photographed in that striking pose, right arm high, left hand in skirt pocket, hair wild and right leg straining against a pencil skirt with both feet off the ground, the coloured artwork on Georgy Girl has the right mood but is it supposed to be Lynn Redgrave?

Limited edition exclusive 40-page booklet with a new essay by Leanne Weston, Howard Maxford on the film's making, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits It is with a huge smile that I find our once ace Cineoutsider reviewer Leanne Weston now contributing to the booklets of films she would have loved to have reviewed while still with Outsider. And her essay – Good Girl. Bad Luck: Gender, Morality and Performance in Georgy Girl – is a fine one. Leanne gives the context in which the film was made and puts forward the idea that Georgy and Meredith represent two extreme examples of womanhood at the time, the 'it' girl with all the social choices available to her and her dowdy flatmate destined to pick up the leftover crumbs. Leanne says that "Thematically and tonally speaking, it perhaps hasn't aged well." But I think it's been directed so artfully that those elements didn't bother me at all. Dare I say from a woman's perspective, the lens may be very different from my own. Making Georgy Girl by Howard Maxford is a deft selection of quotations from those involved in the making of the film collected in 1996 by Maxford himself. The idea that at an early screening there were no comments at all and Redgrave and Bates just left for a downcast meal is oddly touching. There are extracts from the critical response at the time and as ever, they make for hugely entertaining reading. A great booklet.

A light-hearted and intelligent examination of significant human issues capturing an era that promised so much, Georgy Girl is a superior slice of sixties entertainment. There are vibrant and engaging performances with Lynn Redgrave's awkward heroine front and centre in a film that manages to air some contentious concerns that still divide people today. But it's all done so skilfully that you never get any impression that 'issues' are being raised. It's certainly one of the best of the sixties' crop. Warmly recommended.

* https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jul/28/silvio-narizzano-obituary

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Georgy Girl

Georgy Girl 1966

Directed by Silvio Narizzano Screenplay by Margaret Forster and Peter Nichols Based on the novel by Margaret Forster Theme song by Tom Springfield and Jim Dale Music by Alexander Faris

Lynn Redgrave – Georgy Alan Bates – Jos Jones James Mason – James Leamington Charlotte Rampling – Meredith Bill Owen – Ted Clare Kelly – Doris Rachel Kempson – Ellen Leamington Denise Coffey – Peg Dorothy Alison – health visitor Dandy Nichols – midwife

The 60s retrospective series …

It’s that song that comes to mind first. As well as being a major international hit for The Seekers, it came with three versions of lyrics … opening, closing and 45 single release, written by comic actor Jim “Carry On films” Dale. The tune defines “catchy” and “earworm” – a gift Tom Springfield displayed in writing for The Seekers, but never more than here. Say ‘Georgy Girl’ and my mental picture is Judith Durham singing it, not Lynn Redgrave acting in it.

It may be because of the song that I was unfamiliar with the film in the 60s. The Seekers were so far from cool (it was only years later that I discovered they were actually pretty cool and hanging out and co-writing with Paul Simon). The film was released in October 1966. I was in my first term at university, and didn’t have a girlfriend at the time (Say “Aah! sympathetically). In 60s terms, it’s the sort of film you might have gone to see with a girlfriend, but not with a bunch of lads from the hall of residence after a couple of beers. So I didn’t see it then.

It’s always classed as a “Swinging 60s London” film along with Darling, Blow-up, Morgan, Alfie. Mainly it’s a “not swinging 60s London” experience, except for Meredith (Charlotte Rampling). I’m afraid Alan Bates’ jaunty cap doesn’t count. Musically it doesn’t connect either, apart from the theme song.

The casting puzzles me in that it’s said Vanessa Redgrave declined the role, and passed it to her sister, Lynn. Both got Academy Award nominations that year, Vanessa for Morgan and Lynn for Georgy Girl. The Redgraves also got their mum, Rachel Kempson, a part as the hypochondriac wife of the wealthy James Leamington (James Mason). Having just seen Vanessa Redgrave in Blow-up and Morgan it’s impossible to see how she would have fitted the basic requirement, to be a “big girl.” That must be the origin of the story … that Georgy is large, quite plain and unattractive BUT has personality – lively, caring and with a sense of humour. In the script she’s referred to as Georgy Porgy which is the nursery rhyme, Georgy Porgy, pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry. She is described in the script as fish face, fat face and big and ugly. The Swinging 60s aspect for women who remember it at the time, was the COUNTER Swinging 60s, in starring a character who was not the Jean Shrimpton / Twiggy / Kings Road / Mini-skirt / perfect legs template but who WAS interesting. The character of Meredith, who fitted the template, was an absolute bitch.

Margaret Forster’s novel was only recently published, and they added Peter Nichols for the screenplay. He had been in the original Combined Forces Entertainment unit in the Far East (which inspired It Ain’t Half Hot Mum ) and was in a unit with John Schlesinger, Stanley Baxter and Kenneth Williams. Playwrights were getting the lion’s share of screenwriting in the UK in the mid-60s. Peter Nichols scripted Georgy Girl a year after Catch Us If You Can for the Dave Clark Five, and a year before his first stage success with A Day In The Death of Joe Egg. Margaret Forster did the initial screenplay, but couldn’t cut any of her story. Peter Nichols came in and totally re-did the dialogue. The director had to sort it out.

Silvio Narizzano was a Canadian director, working extensively in British TV, and in 1966 film, having a fashionably Italian name AND being a native English speaker was a huge advantage. Nevertheless all he got for directing it was £5000 and added, ‘Even then, that was low money.’

The blu-ray essay by Howard Maxford quotes Silvio Narizzano:

Silvio Narizzano: We always had Vanessa Redgrave down as the leading lady … I had only one question to ask her: how was she going to play this girl who looked like the back of a bus? Vanessa was the beautiful Greta Garbo of the sixties … I wanted to know on what terms Vanessa was going to do the part so that we could alter the script accordingly. And we did … we took out all the stuff about her looking like the back end of a bus because it didn’t make sense anymore.

Vanessa Redgrave pulled out just a week before production and had asked them to consider her sister for the cameo of Peg. Narizzano met with Lynn and instantly knew he’d found his Georgy.

It was a budget production, shot in black and white … as was Morgan . Lynn Redgrave says it only got made because of James Mason:

Lynn Redgrave: They kept pulling the plug on the film because they said that James and I and Alan Bates didn’t add up to much at the box-office, but in the end, we got it made because of James’ enthusiasm for the quirkiness of the story, and the chance it gave him to go back to his Yorkshire accent. He took very little money for it, and we all thought it was just going to be a low-budget release, so when it became such a huge success, it was all the more lovely for those of us who’d always had faith in it. Quoted in Sheridan Morley, James Mason: O dd Man Out, biography, 1989

She added that because of James Mason’s schedule, they filmed all his scenes in the first three weeks, which she described as like ‘making a mini-film.’

Lynn Redgrave (who was indeed the essential, tall, but neither”fat” nor “ugly”) acted it so well (you can do a lot with unflattering clothes and messy hair), that it blighted her career, forever described as ‘an ugly duckling,’ in spite of an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe win.

Lynn Redgrave: All I got sent for a while were scripts about an ungainly character bumbling about and getting tangled in peoples lives.

It’s hard to see that the themes … pre-marital sex, promiscuity, sleeping with your pregnant friend’s husband, discussing abortion casually, i.e. three times this week, and that’s just on Eastenders , were considered cutting edge and scandalous at the time. The British Board of Film Censors said ‘it was the most immoral script they’d ever read.’ But I suspect those prigs said that to a lot of producers.

Georgy is short for Georgina, and she’s sometimes called George … I never fail to notice references to Enid Blyton’s Famous Five …

The opening shows her coming out of a shop with an elaborate hair do, looking at in a shop window and washing it off. Georgy is not a fashion victim. She’s never had a boyfriend either.

Georgy teaches a class of small kids dance, and plays the piano. She’s great with kids, a natural primary teacher. The studio she uses is provided by her father’s employer, James Leavington (James Mason). Georgy’s dad, Ted, (Bill Owen) and mum (Clare Kelly) are live-in domestic staff. Her sycophantic dad is highly critical of Georgy’s lack of grooming, and says she looks like a tramp (British meaning, i.e. hobo).

Ted: She’s like some great enormous lorry driver.

Ted is devoted to his master:

Bill Owen: James Mason was very good to act with, and of course (Ted) was a delightful part. It was written with this slight tendency to homosexual touches. It may be my imagination, but this old basket (Ted) was prepared to exist with his guv’nor rather than his daughter. Leamington was like a form of idol to Ted.

We learn that “Mr James” sent Georgy to a Swiss Finishing School, and installed the studio in his house for her. He has taken an interest in her all her life. His wife is bedridden, and a hypochondriac.

Meredith (Charlotte Rampling) in Mary Quant dress

Georgy shares a flat with Meredith (Charlotte Rampling) who treats her like dirt. Meredith has the Mary Quant dresses and boyfriends. Her main boyfriend is Jos Jones (Alan Bates). He thinks he’s her exclusive partner, but she’s always off with other blokes. I noted that as the story progresses they get steadily richer … Lambretta mod scooter, then Triumph Spitfire sport car, up a level to a Sunbeam Alpine then finally a Mercedes. Georgy gets on well with Jos. When Meredith is late back, she prepares a meal for them both, but just gets dismissed when Meredith returns and takes it over. Meredith thinks nothing of pushing Georgy out of the way into the kitchen, and then leaping on to the sofa to have it off with Jos.

Georgy has been given a party dress for Mr James’ party but doesn’t want to wear it. She turns up at the party unannounced and sings a would-be lascivious version of Whole Lotta Woman .

It’s a black tie party, but note the old-fashioned band.

‘Mr James’ takes her into his study. She thinks of him as a surrogate father. He’s cold, clipped, formal. He says:

James: I’m 49. Notice that: not 50 yet. When I first met your dad, I was 27 and just got married. Your dad was unemployed and couldn’t afford to marry your mother. I took him on. She came along as housekeeper, and they got married. Ellen and I have never been blessed with children. As a result, I’ve tended to look upon you as my daughter. I’ve always been sorry that you weren’t. But now I’m glad.

She thinks he wants to adopt her, but he produces a legal contract and announces that he wants her to become his mistress, and all the legal conditions are in the contract.

Georgy: I haven’t got to wear gymslips or suck lollipops …

James Leavington, aka ‘Mr James’ (James Mason)

(The 49 is odd – James Mason was 57 when they made it, and because of the way he acts in the role, looks it and a bit more. That reflects on men trying to look older and serious in that era, a tendency which soon went).

Georgy avoids the issue. Back at the flat, Meredith has discovered she is pregnant. She instructs Jos to marry her, not because she loves him, but because she’s bored and it might make a change. She announces that’s she’s already “destroyed two of yours” (aborted them … illegal in 1966). Jos moves in. They marry, with Meredith saying Georgy can’t be a bridesmaid, but ‘the best man.’

Georgy, Jos (Alan Bates), Meredith (Charlotte Rampling)

Georgy gets James to buy expensive baby stuff … Mr James has a Rolls Royce, driven by Ted.

‘Your wife’s dead,’ Doris (Clare Kelly), Ted (Bill Owen), Mr Leavington (James Mason). Both Mr Leavington and Jos Jones have cigars on all possible occasions.

They get back to discover that Mrs Leavington is dead. Ted says of course he’ll deal with everything. Ted’s attitude to Georgy’s attractiveness is unchanging:

Ted: Who’d want to try it on with old George … I mean, look at her!

James decides to redo the bedroom, and Ted reports back to Doris on the interior designers:

Ted: It’s gonna be a Bessarabian brothel up there … there’s a couple of Nancy boys dancing about …

As the pregnancy continues, Jos and Georgy spend more and more time together. Jos is arguing with Meredith about her attitude to the unborn baby, and suddenly kisses Georgy and tells her he loves her. She flees the flat and he chases, threatening to disrobe unless she reciprocates.

Let’s get it on … Georgy & Jos

They get back to the flat, Meredith isn’t there, and they have sex, it’s Georgy’s first time. The door is knocked and Peg announces that Meredith is in hospital about to give birth. The midwife is the wonderful Dandy Nicholls.

After giving birth, Meredith won’t touch the baby, Sara, and announces that she wants it adopted.

Meredith (Charlotte Ramplin) in hospital with Jos (Alan Bates) – who hasn’t taken his hat off, I note!

Meredith (to Jos): Well? Aren’t you going to look at it? This is your marvellous child you couldn’t bear being destroyed, remember? It’s hideous. I hate it… It gave me hell … I want it adopted. Now.

Being 1966, no one in the open ward suggests that she has postnatal depression nor expresses any sympathy or concern. They just stare in horror. Meredith departs with a bloke in a Mercedes.

Georgy and Jos move in together with the baby. The baby is her main focus. A health visitor arrives, and Georgy suggests she’s a nanny, sleeps on the sofa and tells her that ‘the father’ Mr Jones has a responsible job in a bank. Enter Jos stripping off as he comes in the door and it becomes clear.

Jos: Georgina! George, where are you? You great, sexy beast! I’m free! Hey. I’ve chucked in that god-awful job at the bank and I’m free. Now we can spend all day in bed together. Hey, where are you? Hey, where are you hiding that great, seraphic body of yours, eh? Come out! Come out. Come out. Come out. Health visitor: Mr Jones?

Social Services will intervene and take the baby (note for Cathy Come Home.)

The end of the affair. They’re standing outside what is now the Tate Modern, right where the Millenium Bridge ends.

Georgy and Jos go for a long river trip (fascinating to see what used to be where Shakespeare’s Globe now is)- and she leaves him at (I think) Greenwich. She decides to marry James Leavington. We see an elaborate wedding. They get in the car … she is only interested in the baby.

Genuinely very distressed baby. Unacceptable cruelty. The director should be deeply ashamed of himself. So should the parents.

(The baby was EXTREMELY distressed in this scene which makes Karen so angry, that the director and its parents are lucky they are not around! Had this been the premiere and we’d all been present, they would have been in deep trouble!)

We had a problem with the casting of Alan Bates as the cheerful cheeky chappie, It might be the serious roles he’s normally played, and he gurned and grinned to abandon, but we kept thinking, ‘This was a part for Michael Caine … or even our song lyricist, Jim Dale.’ He also didn’t come across as a great lady killer even though he gets a lot of screen time rolling about on beds. In the end, wrong guy for the part.

A friend mentioned how bleak London looks in these 60s Black & white films. London in 1966 was pretty bleak. Clean air laws came in the late 1950s, but every public building was still soot blackened. It took decades to clean up and reveal the stone and brick – they were still cleaning bits of St Pauls Cathedral a few years ago – and in Georgy Girl you can see the dome is covered with scaffolding, so they’d probably just started in 1966. Then the boat guide points out Christopher Wren’s house, next door to what is now Shakespeare’s Globe, and then it was dark gloomy warehouses along what is now one of the most vibrant areas. Partly it’s climate change. No cafés had outside tables then. But I suspect it’s accentuated by the cinematographers. They like cloud cover or no cloud at all. They hate days with patchy cloud and alternating sunshine, which is so often the UK climate.

The enduring figure is Georgy. Lynn Redgrave admitted that the censors were right in suggesting the character was immoral. She added ‘ruthless’ but in the end the appeal is that she’s a survivor.

Silvio Narizzano hated the theme song … he’d wanted Funny Girl, sing by Barbra Streisand. It pushed the film to greater success though … US #1 in Cash Box, US #2 in Billboard, Canada #1, Australia #1, UK #2 or #3 (depending on which chart).,

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961) Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963) Tom Jones (1963) The Fast Lady (1963) Cat Ballou (1965) The Ipcress File (1965 ) Darling (1965) The Knack (1965) Doctor Zhivago (1965) Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966) Alfie (1966) Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966 The Chase (1966) The Trap (1966) Georgy Girl (1966) Fahrenheit 451 (1966) Modesty Blaise (1966) The Family Way (1967) Privilege (1967) Blow-up (1967) Accident (1967) Bonnie and Clyde (1967) I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967) How I Won The War (1967) Far From The Madding Crowd (1967) Poor Cow (1967) Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968) The Magus (1968) If …. (1968) The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968) Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968) The Party (1968) Petulia (1968) Barbarella (1968) The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) Bullitt (1968) Deadfall (1968) The Swimmer (1968) Theorem (Teorema) (1968) The Magic Christian (1969) The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) Performance (1970)

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People Like Us
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Peter Pan Goes Wrong
Photograph 51
Playing Cards 1: Spades
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Present Laughter- Bath 2003
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Pride and Prejudice * (*sort of)
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Privates On Parade
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Relative Values
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Same Time, Next Year
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Tangomotion
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The Changeling
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The Country
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The Deep Blue Sea, BBC 1994
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The Famous Five: A New Musical
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The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk
The Four Seasons: A Reimagining
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The HOBBLEDEHOY

I use the best, i use the rest, review: “georgy girl” is no feminist statement.

By Mark Fraser

Viewed with a proverbial pinch of salt, Silvio Narizzano’s Georgy Girl (1966) is what UK-based media commentator Leanne Weston aptly calls “a comedy of manners turned social critique set amidst the backdrop of ‘Swinging London’”.

It is also, Weston adds in her 2018 essay on the film, “about a world and a girl in transition”, in which the titular character Georgina “Georgy” Parkin ( Lynn Redgrave ) is portrayed at different times as either “an object of inspiration, affection or ridicule”.

More to the point, though, she is also seen as an object of desire, and it’s this treatment of the protagonist that gives the film’s narrative a sinister undertone as it pretends – in line with The Seekers’ song on which it is partly based – to be a tale about liberation and individualism when in fact, behind its genial facade, it is really one concerning incarceration and servitude.

Or, to put it another way, there’s quite a bit of unpleasant subtext at work in this movie.

Sure – the awkwardly individualistic Georgy has undergone something of a transformation by the end of the film as she achieves what appears to be a form of compromised marital bliss.

But how she gets there does, at times, touch upon the highly dubious.

During the first third of the story, for instance, Georgy’s father’s rich employer James Leamington ( James Mason ) – a childless businessman who insists he always looked upon her as a daughter while she was growing up in his house – suggests they enter a written contract whereby she becomes his mistress (this while his wife Ellen, played by Rachel Kempson , is dying). Oddly, despite balking at this generous offer to effectively be his whore, by the movie’s conclusion she has ended up marrying the man – an act which allows her, in the words of The Seekers at least, to become “a new Georgy girl”.

Meanwhile, Georgy’s in-residence butler dad Ted ( Bill Owen ) more or less pimps her off to his boss (admittedly this is only suggested in a brief exchange of dialogue; nevertheless the implication is there), reaffirming his and his wife Doris’ ( Clare Kelly ) fear that their lone offspring is an awkward loser whose only real hope in life is to attach herself to some well-to-do gent.

And, before she eventually ties the knot with Leamington, the hitherto virginal heroine has an affair with Jos Jones ( Alan Bates ), who has just married her roommate/best friend Meredith ( Charlotte Rampling ) after the latter becomes pregnant.

To complicate matters, following the baby’s arrival a bitterly post-natal Meredith – who has already aborted previous pregnancies with Jones – decides she will adopt the infant out, at which point Georgy steps in as the surrogate mother. In effect this not only allows her to strengthen her connection with the soon-to-be divorced father, but also forces her to lie to the UK Government’s social services agency in order to keep her “daughter” Sara (actor unknown).

But when her happy-go-lucky lover irresponsibly throws caution to the wind by quitting his stifling job at the bank, Georgy has to reassess everything and, it’s at this point, she decides the lecherous old Leamington (who’s actually only 49) is the better option. Unfortunately, this development looks like it too may eventually be fraught with difficulty when – just as the newly-weds are being driven away from the church ceremony – her husband’s face seriously drops as it dawns on him that he hasn’t just secured a new (and much younger) squeeze who he has known since she was a baby, but will now have to compete with someone else’s child for his bride’s affections.

Thus, how their life of marital bliss will pan out becomes one of the story’s big unknowns as it’s here that the end credits roll. If anything, it is likely much of the above-mentioned unsavouriness dogging Georgy’s existence will continue as she embarks on what is in no way a certain future.

Mixed message

While this might sound like a grimly sanctimonious interpretation of a movie which, in many ways, tries to pass itself off as a melodramatic comedy, the conclusion is still inescapable – the ugly duckling heroine may have become something of a swan, but she ultimately looks set to remain stranded in the same stagnant pond. Or, to put it bluntly (and contrary to what the plot might otherwise be suggesting), it’s highly unlikely there will ever be a completely satisfactory existence for this woman.

In her above-mentioned essay on the film, which is included in the promotional material accompanying Powerhouse Films Ltd’s Blu-ray release of Georgy Girl , Weston acknowledges it does not treat its leading character “with warmth or hold her in such high regard” as audiences of the day did. Rather, “she is side-lined in her own story”; an interesting observation given Redgrave, in real life (and, one might add, quite unfairly) received third billing behind Mason and Bates.

“From today’s vantage point, Georgy just seems like an ordinary girl: vivacious, flawed, yet lovable – someone we could be friends with,” the critic says. “And that’s what makes the film so interesting.”

Perhaps. However, it’s also arguable that much of the movie’s intrigue stems from the fact its outlook is decidedly brutal. No one in the film, for instance, seems to have a particularly strong moral compass. Furthermore, at the end of its cinematic day, Swinging London is portrayed as a dead end; a place where wanton hedonism may be commonplace, but the privileged class still gets what it wants so long as it’s willing to pay the price. Thus, as a commentary about what was then the emerging youth culture’s attempt to distance itself from a stuffier (read older) generation, Georgy Girl actually turns out to be quite pessimistic.

This begs the question: is this what the film makers – particularly screenwriters Margaret Forster (who wrote the novel on which the movie is based) and Peter Nichols – set out to do?

Possibly, but it is quite difficult to ascertain as the quirky and upbeat feel of the whole narrative doesn’t seem to have an overtly ironic (or tragic) bone in its bubbly celluloid body.

Interestingly, Redgrave more or less agreed that the film’s portrayal of her character was not exactly positive when being interviewed by journalist Howard Maxford back in 1996.

“George (sic) is quite ruthless really,” she said. “So it is an immoral story, but George was such a survivor that people identified with her.”

Survival, though, comes at a cost – something, it seems, which may have been lost on progressive audiences of the day. As for contemporary viewers who embrace the values of the Me Too movement, they no doubt will find very few redeeming values in this ultimately sexist tale.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Leanne Weston : “Good Girl, Bad Luck: Morality and Performance in Georgy Girl”, Powerhouse Films Ltd promotional booklet, 2018, pp 5-13

Howard Maxford : “Making Georgy Girl”, Powerhouse Films Ltd promotional booklet, 2018, p 28

Source: Review: “Georgy Girl” Is No Feminist Statement

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Rotten Tomatoes® Score

Even that sense of discomfort, of puzzlement, evaporates, because it is all made trivial -- Georgy’s pain as well as her bright remarks.

Georgy Girl is from the life's-a-giggle school of comedy, and Lynn Redgrave larks about non-stop, exhibiting a talent for mimicry with overtones of Joyce Grenfell.

An empty film posing as something more substantial.

Classic British Invasion flick with a slightly sour tone.

Additional Info

Genre : Drama, Comedy
Release Date : October 17, 1966
Languages : English
Captions : English
Audio Format : Stereo

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To make a broad but useful generalization: Before "Look Back in Anger" (1958), most British films were more or less traditional comedies, dramas, thrillers or what have you. Since then, a generation of inventive young directors has found the freedom to make movies about, and against, key aspects of their society. The better films they've produced since 1958 seem to fall roughly into two classes.

First there were the films of working-class realism, inspired by the "angry young men" playwrights, authors and directors in revolt against the Conservative establishment then running the country. Their heroes were workingmen who couldn't care less what happened east of Suez, and their credo was expressed nicely in "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" when Albert Finney snarled: "All I'm out for is a bloody good time, and you can take all the rest and shove it."

Memorable films of this period included "A Taste of Honey," "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" and "This Sporting Life." They were often about men who knew something was dreadfully wrong with their lives -- that some essential ingredient was missing -- but who felt incapable of changing themselves and sought refuge in bitterness, a fierce rejection of Establishment values, and marathon bouts of drinking and wenching.

In the end, these refuges proved inadequate, and most of the working class films brought their heroes full-circle. The last frame of "A Taste of Honey" shows Rita Tushingham wistfully absorbed in a toy sparkler; children play around her, but she will never again know their joy and optimism. At the end of "Long Distance Runner," Tom Courteney deliberately loses the race, which could win him the warden's favor. He does not want to perform for the Establishment: he would rather be an outsider.

Most of these films were based on a feeling of impotence; there didn't seem to be any way out of society's trap, and in any event there was nothing an individual could do. But with the beginning of the Kennedy years here and the election of the Labor government in Britain, the workingman's predicament became less popular as a plot subject. In a way, it was old-fashioned anyway.

What had happened was that the intellectuals no longer felt barred from the centers of power. Norman Mailer has written that when Kennedy was elected, he felt able to have an influence again through his writing -- instead of through ban-the-bomb demonstrations and other dead ends. In England, where most of the writers and directors considered themselves socialists, the Labor victory posed a similar question: Now that "our crowd" is in power, whom do we blame for what's wrong?

The new target, as it turned out, was "our crowd" itself. The young British directors turned to comedy, aiming it at the conventional pieties of their society. They used black comedy, sick comedy, wildly satirical comedy, comedy designed to undermine hypocrisy as directly as possible.

The victims of this new comedy were not fat policemen, officious nurses, blueblooded aristocrats and Terry-Thomas , but the middle class, the intellectuals and their own most treasured prejudices. The turning point probably came in 1963, when director Tony Richardson abandoned working-class subjects and made his first comedy, " Tom Jones ." It was a landmark film, in which traditional ways of making commercial movies were left behind. Broad farce went side-by-side with serious social comment and total irreverence. Albert Finney was an embittered workingman no longer, but a jolly dropout who made asides directly to the audience so they could share the fun.

"Tom Jones" was followed by many satirical comedies: "Morgan," "Georgy Girl," "Darling," " A Hard Day's Night ," " Alfie " (1966), "The Knack" and " Bedazzled " (1968) for starters. Many only seemed to be funny. Beneath Georgy Girl's ugly duckling act and Alfie's carefree amorality, you could find a serious criticism of the hero's life and times.

All of this is in preface to some remarks about "Poor Cow," which isn't a very good movie but is extremely interesting in terms of what is happening now in the British cinema. "Poor Cow" may be an advance sign that we are entering a third phase in recent British films.

After the social realism and then the satire, here comes a film made in equal parts of squalor and techniques. Like Peter Collinson's recent " The Penthouse ,"' it wants to offend us at least as much as it wants to amuse and educate us, and it seems part of a new anger appearing among artists in England and America. Its director, Kenneth Loach , supplies a venomous, unforgiving examination of British life and offers not a shred of hope for the future. His approach avoids the message and social significance of the working-class films, while borrowing their subject matter. It also avoids the humor of the new comedies, while borrowing their subversive, irreverent attitudes.

Perhaps this can be read as an indication that things no longer seem funny in England. The devaluation of the pound and the general directionlessness of the Labor government, for which so much was hoped, seem subjects for bitterness rather than fun. Seen against a back drop of other sore points for British leftists -- Rhodesia, Vietnam, racist immigration policies -- Loach's ill will and his readiness to offend his audiences may be an approach we can expect to see more of.

"Poor Cow" is patterned after "Darling" in a way. Its producer, Joseph Janni , also produced that one, and its star, Carol White , looks enough like Julie Christie to be her twin sister (the one who couldn't act). Both Darling and Poor Cow were girls who cold-bloodedly used their bodies to get what they wanted from the world. But there, the resemblance ends.

For one thing, the heroine of "Poor Cow" doesn't achieve much satisfaction or happiness. As a lower-class female, trapped in an environment where ex-convicts and sleazy pub-crawlers are considered good catches, she is literally a cow. Her purpose, once the dreams have been stripped away, seems to be fundamental: She satisfies men and she bears children. Life holds absolutely nothing else for her or for other "poor cows" trapped in her situation. She does not realize her full hopelessness, however, justifying it in terms of her neurotic need for constant male companionship ("Any man will do," as the ads say).

There is, as I have suggested, no message in this movie, despite its promising subject. This is not necessarily a fault. Mark Twain offered to shoot anybody finding a moral in "Huckleberry Finn." But a film's message need not be obvious. It can consist simply of the director's attitude toward his material, conveyed by the way he tells his story. This is Godard's approach, except when he starts making political speeches.

Loach apparently doesn't have an attitude, however, and seems unable to decide what his story of Poor Cow means. This confusion is buried beneath technique and permissiveness. He plays with his camera and lets his actors run wild. There's lots of hand-held camera work, lots of playing with the focus while shooting into the sun, lots of lyrical passages in which Donovan sings while the screen runs over with pretty pictures and even chapter titles (borrowed from Godard) which are flashed on the screen to begin each episode.

When Richard Lester uses gimmicks like this (in "The Knack," for example) they seem to add up to an attitude. When Loach uses them, they seem little more than exercises. They are all the more distracting because the performances don't absorb us. With the exception of Terence Stamp , who is excellent as the girl's sensitive but irresponsible lover, there is no one in the movie who should be trusted out from under the director's thumb. Yet Loach allows them semi-improvised scenes that mostly fall flat (and in which the other male lead, John Bindon , proves himself incapable of improvising so much as a sneeze).

In the end, the few good moments (as when the girl tends bar, cares for her child and shares confidences with Terence Stamp) are lost in the mess of everything else. The movie doesn't work, and like all movies that don't work it seems long and boring. Still, it may be the forerunner of a new attitude from England. If you're interested in movies, by all means see this one. It will give you more to talk about than most successful films.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

Poor Cow (1968)

101 minutes

Kate Williams as Beryl

Carol White as Joy

John Bindon as Tom

Geraldine Sherman as Trixie

Terence Stamp as Dave

Queenie Watts as Aunt Emm

Stevie King as Jonny

Joseph Janni

Directed by

Kenneth Loach

Photographed by

Brian Probyn

Based on the novel by

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COMMENTS

Georgy Girl
Sep 19, 2023 Full Review Wendy Michener Maclean's Magazine Georgy Girl is from the life's-a-giggle school of comedy, and Lynn Redgrave larks about non-stop, exhibiting a talent for mimicry with ...
Georgy Girl (1966)
Georgy Girl: Directed by Silvio Narizzano. With James Mason, Alan Bates, Lynn Redgrave, Charlotte Rampling. A traditional girl (Lynn Redgrave) resists the advances of a swinger (James Mason) who wants her as his mistress in 1960s London.
Georgy Girl (1966)
I watched this movie mostly for Lynn Redgrave, expecting nothing more than an old, light-hearted British comedy. It was better than I expected; "Georgy Girl" is a lovely, bittersweet dramedy clearly inspired by American screwball comedies of the 30's and the French New Wave that was burning in the 60's (to see how much the Nouvelle Vague aesthetics influenced British cinema, check the also ...
Georgy Girl
Georgy Girl is from the life's-a-giggle school of comedy, and Lynn Redgrave larks about non-stop, exhibiting a talent for mimicry with overtones of Joyce Grenfell. Full Review | Jun 27, 2019.
Georgy Girl
Georgy Girl is a 1966 British romantic comedy film directed by Silvio Narizzano and starring Lynn Redgrave, Alan Bates, Charlotte Rampling, James Mason, and Rachel Kempson (Redgrave's mother). It was written by Margaret Forster and Peter Nichols based on the 1965 novel of the same name by Forster. The film tells the story of a virginal young woman in 1960s Swinging London, who is faced with a ...
Georgy Girl
Reviews; Dec 31, 1965 11:00pm PT Georgy Girl The role of a gawky ungainly plain Jane [in this adaptation of the novel by Margaret Forster] is a natural for Lynn Redgrave's talents, and she ...
Georgy Girl (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966) -- (Movie Clip) The Solemn And Binding Character At the insistence of Jos (Alan Bates), ... Bates, cast as the irresponsible Jos, would become a leading man within the year, scoring excellent reviews for his work in King of Hearts (1966) and Far From the Madding Crowd (1967). By the end of the decade, he had proved himself to ...
Georgy Girl Review
15. Original Title: Georgy Girl. Although the swinging London scene has come to represent the popular image of 1960s Britain, the majority of people endured a far more humdrum reality. Everyday ...
‎Georgy Girl (1966) directed by Silvio Narizzano • Reviews, film + cast
Review by Sean Baker 4. I didn't know anything about this film. Indicator put out a Blu-ray so I checked it out. I was immediately enraptured by the theme song and opening title sequence. Found the film to be a very interesting character study and time capsule of London's Swinging Sixties. Love the B&W cinematography by Kenneth Higgins (The ...
Georgy Girl
Redgrave is Georgy, a chubby virgin in her early 20s suffering from a lack of self-esteem. Her parents are servants employed by Mason, a well-to-do married man who never sired any children ...
Georgy Girl (1966)
Most of all, she burns to be a mother. But it is Meredith that is in the hospital having an unwanted child. — filmfactsman. Twenty-two-year-old Georgina Parkin, Georgy to her friends, is a Plain Jane of a woman who beats to her own drummer. She grew up in the household of wealthy James Leamington, Georgy's parents being the household domestics.
DVD Savant Review: Georgy Girl
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson. Georgy Girl has swingin' London written all over it, with the overcast streets seeing plenty of 'youthful' antics like running in the rain and making emotional scenes in front of strangers. A vehicle for the talents of English star offspring Lynn Redgrave, the movie tries far too hard to make her loveable but succeeds in most of its aims - we care deeply what ...
GEORGY GIRL
Georgy Parkin (Lynn Redgrave) is a 22-year-old kindhearted but low self-esteemed, unattractive, overweight dance teacher, who has never been kissed. She's living with her popular bitchy attractive concert playing violinist roommate Meredith (Charlotte Rampling), who takes pleasure constantly putting her down as a loser.
Gregory's Girl movie review & film summary (1981)
Advertisement. Bill Forsyth's "Gregory's Girl" is a charming, innocent, very funny little movie about the weird kid. It is set in Scotland, where the teenagers are quieter, more civilized and more naive than, let's say, those in " Class of 1984 .". And it is about Gregory (Gordon John Sinclair), a gangling adolescent who has started ...
Georgy Girl Blu-ray review
In an unapologetic punning mood, Camus reviews a film whose main theme was one of the prevailing sounds of his childhood. Relieved to finally see the film it served on Indicator's recent Blu-ray, he is enlivened by how good GEORGY GIRL is... "Georgy Girl was part of the trend in which British cinema shifted the focus from provincial life and back to the metropolis, celebrating new freedoms and ...
Georgy Girl
The Silver Tassie. Georgy Girl 1966 Directed by Silvio Narizzano Screenplay by Margaret Forster and Peter Nichols Based on the novel by Margaret Forster Theme song by Tom Springfield and Jim Dale Music by Alexander Faris CAST Lynn Redgrave - Georgy Alan Bates - Jos Jones James Mason - James Leamington Charlotte Rampling - Meredith Bill Owen -….
Review: "Georgy Girl" Is No Feminist Statement
By Mark Fraser. Viewed with a proverbial pinch of salt, Silvio Narizzano's Georgy Girl (1966) is what UK-based media commentator Leanne Weston aptly calls "a comedy of manners turned social critique set amidst the backdrop of 'Swinging London'". It is also, Weston adds in her 2018 essay on the film, "about a world and a girl in transition", in which the titular character Georgina ...
Georgy Girl
About this movie. Lynn Redgrave garnered international attention in her role as a girl named Georgy, who marries a wealthy older man so that she can give her roomate's abandoned, illegitimate baby, whom she loves, a home. Earning four Oscar nominations the title song was a hit on two continents for the singing groupThe Seekers.
Georgy Girl
Purchase Georgy Girl on digital and stream instantly or download offline. Story of a girl named Georgy, who marries a wealthy older man so that she can give her roommate's abandoned, illegitimate baby a home. ... Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews. Dennis Schwartz. An empty film posing as something more substantial. May 1, 2021. FULL REVIEW ...
Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Georgy Girl
I love this movie and especially Lynn Redgrave, who is the epitome of a down to Earth "tom-girl". The character "Georgy" played by Redgrave is a fun loving, carefree, but multi-layered and talented, 22 years young British woman who is being pursued by her parents long-time employer, 49 year old, James Learnington (James Mason) who very attracted to Georgy, allows her to teach a music ...
Georgy Girl
Georgy Girl is a bittersweet comedy drama about Georgy (Lynn Redgrave), a slightly overweight, working-class virgin in her early twenties who shares an apartment with the gorgeous, promiscuous Meredith (Charlotte Rampling).Georgy has never been the subject of the desire for any man until the wealthy, married employer of her family, James Leamington (James Mason) (for whom her parents work as ...
Poor Cow movie review & film summary (1968)
"Tom Jones" was followed by many satirical comedies: "Morgan," "Georgy Girl," "Darling," "A Hard Day's Night," "Alfie" (1966), "The Knack" and "Bedazzled" (1968) for starters.Many only seemed to be funny. Beneath Georgy Girl's ugly duckling act and Alfie's carefree amorality, you could find a serious criticism of the hero's life and times.

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​Nocturnal Suburban Teen Angst Fantasia: Jane Schoenbrun on I Saw the TV Glow

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Nocturnal Suburban Teen Angst Fantasia: Jane Schoenbrun on I Saw the TV Glow