by Jake Hjort, Contributing Writer
Welcome back, fellow time travelers, to another edition of 20th Century Flicks! This month, in a continued effort to check classic cinema off of my list of shame, I’ve delved back to 1961 to watch Tony Richardson’s A Taste of Honey. As pride month comes to a close in the US, I wanted to look back at a film that highlights LGBTQIA+ history, finding some in this under-the-radar British New Wave drama.
Set in and around Manchester, England, the film explores the struggles of a down-on-her-luck teenage girl named Jo (Rita Tushingham). Raised by a mother (Dora Bryan) who is far more interested in her gentleman suitors than her own daughter, Jo struggles to fit in and connect with others until she meets Jimmy (Paul Danquah), a young, black sailor whose ship is docked in Manchester. The two quickly fall in love, though their courtship lasts for but a moment before Jimmy sets sail again. After his departure, Jo begins rooming with Geoff (Murray Melvin), a gay man evicted from his previous living situation on account of his sexuality. Things become even more complicated for Jo when she discovers she is pregnant with Jimmy’s child, leading to increased friction between herself, her mother, and Geoff.
I have to admit that I am far from a film historian and that my knowledge of Richardson’s work and the British New Wave of film (or the French New Wave that it’s derived from, for that matter) that doesn’t extend far beyond this movie. At their peak in the late 50s and early 60s, this era of film aimed for stark realism, often telling stories of the working class and framing their narratives through the style of cinema verité. In this sense, A Taste of Honey and films like it are far from feel-good stories that leave you with a sense of hope that these characters will be able to escape their situations and find a better future for themselves. Instead, everyone here is rather miserable, and the film ends on a very dour note. I can understand the context in which stories like this were a breath of fresh air for those living in these situations, but as someone who likes to have just a little bit of escapism in the media I consume a dash of levity would have been nice.
That said, there certainly is still a lot to appreciate here. The film is beautifully shot in black and white by cinematographer Walter Lassally, with some great shots of both industrial Manchester and of the Northern English countryside. The performances are great as well, particularly Tushingham and Melvin in the two lead roles, both of whom won awards at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. This is Tushingham’s acting debut and she does a great job portraying Jo as a young woman whose naivety conflicts with the harsh world around her, contrasted well by Melvin’s Geoff struggling to find any sense of happiness to combat his cynicism.
As I mentioned before, I wanted to find a film for this article that highlights LGBTQIA+ history and I think that A Taste of Honey’s unflinching willingness to portray what were at the time socially controversial topics is commendable. The film features an explicitly gay character at a time in which homosexuality was still illegal in the UK and in all 50 states and an interracial relationship six years before Loving v. Virginia. Not that representation is perfect today, but at that time the vast majority of queer characters in film were either villains, played as jokes, or ambiguous at best, so to see a character in Geoff who is, though tragic, incredibly sympathetic and unabashedly himself is really great.
A Taste of Honey is a difficult film to recommend because it doesn’t make for a particularly pleasant viewing experience. This is a film that forces you to reckon with how we treat the outcasts and the downtrodden and, though it has plenty of kindness, there isn’t much happiness to find. It is a film that I seldom see discussed online, but one that perhaps deserves a bit more credit for its place in film history. If you’re looking for a good time then I’d suggest you look somewhere else, but if you’re willing to sit in discomfort for an hour and half to get a very honest window into someone else’s life than this may very well be the film for you.
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