Rent No Love for Johnnie (1961)

3.7 of 5 from 63 ratings
1h 46min
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Synopsis:
An ambitious Labour MP Johnnie Byrne (Peter Finch) has been re-elected Labour MP for the northern constituency of Earnley and is desperate for a seat in government. His ambitions remain unfulfilled when he is overlooked for a cabinet post in the new Labour administration of Prime Minister Stevens (Geoffrey Keen) and as a consequence his communist leaning wife Alice leaves him. In the political wilderness Johnnie seeks comfort with a group of disaffected back bench Labour MP's who seek to embarrass their own government. Unpopular with his government front bench and separated from his wife Johnnie seeks comfort with a young model Pauline West (Mary Peach), and they begin a relationship.
With the turmoil in his love life Johnnie begins to neglect his Westminster duties much to the displeasure of his constituency party who summon him to explain his actions. Narrowly surviving censure from his constituency party but with his love life in ruins Johnnie's career seems destined to remain unfulfilled. The illness of a government minister however offers Johnnie a way into government but he will have to choose between reconciling with his wife and a seat in government. Produced shortly before the Profumo scandal that rocked British politics in the early 1960's, feature is a moving portrayal of the life of a back bench MP. Johnnie is desperate for love and attention both from front bench colleagues and the women he encounters and desires.
Actors:
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Directors:
Producers:
Betty E. Box
Writers:
Wilfred Fienburgh, Nicholas Phipps
Studio:
Spirit Entertainment Ltd
Genres:
Thrillers
Collections:
Fictional British Prime Ministers On Screen, Introducing a British Film Family
Awards:

1962 BAFTA Best Actor

1961 Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Actor

BBFC:
Release Date:
05/09/2011
Run Time:
106 minutes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles:
None
DVD Regions:
Region 0 (All)
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
Colour:
B & W

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Reviews (1) of No Love for Johnnie

Can I Have a Word? - No Love for Johnnie review by CH

Spoiler Alert
02/11/2021

A week is ninety minutes in politics. The thought comes to mind when thinking of Wilfred Fienburgh MP. What course would his life have taken? On the left of the Labour Party, he rose through adversity and world war but died in 1958 when his motor-car hit a lamp-post in London. He left behind a novel, No Love for Johnnie. That posthumous publication was soon followed by a swift-moving film (1960) - and one can reasonably speculate that these inspired all the incarnations of Michael Dobbs's House of Cards.

Not to give away too much (writing and politics share something with the bridge or, better, the chess table). Although, in reality, that was the era of Macmillan's “you've never had it so good”, the film (directed by Ralph Thomas and co-written by Mordecai Richler) finds an alternative reality in which Labour is in charge between that end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles' first LP. The focus is upon an MP from the North (Peter Finch, on screen almost all of the time). He has to temper what one might call his New Labour ambitions with his constituents' (or, at any rate, the local Party's) views - which are, shall we say, of a Corbynite persuasion.

Nothing changes, all that much. Even as I write this, there are doubtless voices which hush on the Terrace as somebody goes by who is not part of an intra-Party plot being hatched beside that eternal river.

And, of course, there is always the human factor to undermine the design of politics by numbers. In this case, Finch's marriage has staled, if it ever had brio; he is bruised, vulnerable to passing fancy (played both by the wonderfully-named Mary Peach, still with us, and Billie Whitelaw who, alas, is not). All of which appears to anticipate those events which, a couple of years later, brought down a Conservative government (“well, he would say that, wouldn't he?”).

As for this film itself, it moves at a pace, with a cast which comprises so many of those whom politicians would call “a dream team” - from Mervyn Johns to Mona

Washbourne by way of Dennis Price as an acerbic, low-camp photographer who, wise to model Miss Peach's ad hoc political involvement, tells her to pretend that the saucepan handle in her grasp “is the whole Front Bench”. How did that get past the Censor?

Here is a film whose ensemble playing is something of which politicians themselves can only dream. Although Peter Finch is to the fore with a bravura performance – which makes something charming of the charmless -, this is a film in which everybody, from a stationmaster to a Commons clerk, has a well-deployed line or two. Democracy in action.

Not to mention a party in a basement flat, that disc-driven staple of early-Sixties films. In this case, a few seconds find Oliver Reed contending with a cardboard box over his head. Quite why is not clear. Could he have inspired Lord Buckethead?

Another puzzle is that it was filmed in cinemascope, for the bulk of it – from bed to bar and back again – is a matter of smoke-filled interiors. Still, the eyes adjust to the shehanigans.

High time the novel were re-issued.

And would that there had been seat-belts and air-bags in 1958.

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