Directed by John Schlesinger | 113 mins | 1962
Set against the factories and watering holes of Lancashire, the fiction feature debut of "Midnight Cowboy" director Schlesinger stars the brooding Alan Bates as a young draughtsman whose affair with an office secretary (June Ritchie) results in a then-scandalous pregnancy, forced marriage, and financially-strapped cohabitation with her disapproving mother (British TV mainstay Thora Hird). Schlesinger’s tender affinity for outsiders is on full display, evoking the anxieties of post-war youth as they collided with the previous generation’s outmoded social mores.