Following the success of Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,
Alan Sillitoe adapted another of his works for the screen, this time a short
story of a disillusioned teenager rebelling against the system. Newcomer Tom
Courtenay is compelling as the sullen, defiant Colin, refusing to follow his
dying father into a factory job, railing against the capitalist bosses and
preferring to make a living from petty thieving.
Arrested for burglary and sent to borstal, Colin discovers a talent for
cross-country running, earning him special treatment from the governor (Michael
Redgrave), and the chance to redeem himself from anti-social tearaway to sports
day hero. With Colin a favourite to win against a local public school, tensions
build as the day approaches. Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long
Distance Runner is one of the great British films of the 1960s.
- Import DVD
- PAL Region 2
- 1:66 Screen Ratio
- Commentary with film historian Robert Murphy, Alan Sillitoe and Tom
Courtenay
- Video essay by cinematograher Walter Lassally
- Stills gallery
- Biographies of Tony Richardson and Allan Sillitoe.
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