The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a 1962 film, based on the short story of the same name. The screenplay, like the short story, was written by Alan Sillitoe. The film was directed by Tony Richardson, one of the new young directors emerging from documentary films, specifically a series of 1950s filmmakers known as the Free Cinema movement.

It tells the story of "a rebellious youth" (played by Tom Courtenay), sentenced to a borstal (boys' reformatory) for robbing a bakery, who rises through the ranks of the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of his life and times before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his privileged status as the Governor's (played by Michael Redgrave) prize runner."

Set in a grim environment of early-1960s Britain and like other films which deal with rebellious youth, it is a story of how the youth chooses to defy authority, in so doing securing his self-esteem (at the probable personal cost of continued confinement). The film places its characters thoroughly in their social milieu. Class consciousness abounds throughout: the "them" and "us" notions which Richardson shows reflect the very basis of British society at the time, so that Redgrave's "proper gentleman" of a Governor is in contrast to many of the young working-class inmates.

Much of the filming took place in and around Claygate, Surrey at Ruxley Towers, a Victorian mock castle built by Lord Foley (hence Ruxton Towers). The building had been used as a NAAFI base in the war, giving it a military atmosphere. The original trumpet theme to the movie was performed by Fred Muscroft (the Scots Guards Principal Cornet at the time).

At times a wrenching character study with no easy answers, Courtenay's performance is a touching portrait of a young man and the journey he takes as he tries to run not only for an unclear future, but from a past he cannot forget. 

A film indicative of the working class expressionism that came out of England in the early 1960s, Richardson's films stands alone as a downbeat, but insightful story of one man's struggle to determine who he is.