No Love for Johnnie

This modest addition to the British school of “kitchen sink” realist film, beyond its specific portraiture of the title character, is a telling study of human nature and life’s disappointments.

Peter Finch plays Johnnie Byrne an ambitious member of the British House of Commons whose has just been returned to his seat in England’s industrial North. Despite an increased majority he has been passed over for a position in the Cabinet. Added to which his wife, Alice (Rosalie Crutchley), has just left him. In order to promote his cause he joins a Leftist splinter group aiming to bring the Prime Minister down.  

Whilst the film economically portrays the back room maneuverings that are commonplace in politics, the real concern of the film articulated by the screenplay by Nicholas Phipps and Mordecai Richler based on a novel by Wilfred Fienburgh is captured by its rueful title.

Much was the case for Laurence Harvey’s Joe Lampton in Room At The Top (1959) Johnnie is driven by a desire for worldly success. He has assiduously shed his working-class persona and groomed himself for a career in politics.  As the film tells us, probably a little too much, at forty-two he is beginning to despair of succeeding. His ambition has caused his marriage to break down and he is feeling sorry for himself.  So is his attractive neighbour (Billie Whitelaw) who offers him some maternal  solace.  Although he dumps her for an attractive young model, Pauline (Mary Peach), he’s not above getting her hopes up when it suits him, firstly when the latter rejects him then when Alice returns.

The film’s title alludes not to the fact that Johnnie is unloved but rather that his chronic self-interestedness precludes him experiencing love. Not only does he use Mary and Alice as the mood takes him but we know that eventually he will do the same to Pauline.

With some nice location photography in Westminster lending an air of authenticity to proceedings and solid performances all round including supports by Stanley Holloway, Geoffrey Keen and Donald Pleasence amongst others, including Dennis Price as a gay photographer, No Love for Johnnie is a satisfyingly well-crafted and insightful film.

 

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