'The Reckoning'

     The other night we sat down to watch 'The Reckoning', a British film of 1970 based on the 1967 novel 'The Harp That Once' by Patrick Hall.  Both were new to me, and I'm tempted to add that after some 111 minutes I'm not that surprised.  In fact the novel seems to have disappeared without trace; it was very hard to find out anything about it online.  The film is work of director Jack Gold - perhaps best remembered for 'The Naked Civil Servant' - and stars the Scottish actor Nicol Williamson, Rachel Roberts, and Anne Bell.  Score by Malcolm Arnold.  All names to conjure with, but the result is oddly flat, directionless, like so many movies of the period. It just somehow sprawls about.  As the bf pointed out the female leads have little to do and Rachel Roberts, for one, is seriously under utilised.  It reminded me in many ways of Mike Hodges' 'Get Carter' (an all together superior film) - the returnee, the violence, revenge, industrial city in decline and general 'It's grim-up-north'.  Indeed some of the best scenes are those of working class Liverpool, a city then falling fast into decay.  So much for the Swinging Sixties and the Mersey Beat.  Gold makes it clear with one lingering shot that Modernist mass housing is not the answer.  However, 'The Reckoning' just lacks the grit, the sheer piss-and-vinegar 'elan vital' of 'Get Carter'.  
     After watching this film you might even suspect that Jack Gold (wrongly, I should think) was a misanthrope.  It certainly isn't easy to work out which class he disliked more, the industrial working or the managerial middle.

The Reckoning

1969

Director                 Jack Gold
Cinematogrpahy  -
Producer               Ronald Sheldo