Information
- BFI identifier42092
- Date1964-07-16 (Release)
- Production countryUnited Kingdom
- Production company
- SynopsisThe story of a marriage of two sensitive, articulate people, bound together by the strongest physical and emotional ties yet helpless in their inability to communicate. To Jo, Jake represents her first love and their marriage a dream of the future: her previous husbands and large family of children are merely the framework for that dream which is shattered when she learns that he is unfaithful. She withdraws into a private world of deepening misery whilst Jake seeks increasing refuge in his career. Threatened with the destruction of their marriage Jo makes a desperate attempt to hold Jake's love. His betrayal of her forces Jo to decide whether she can bear to face reality. Based on the novel, The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer. (Synopsis)
- Genre
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Title
The Pumpkin Eater (Original)
EIDR identifier
10.5240/2824-1A9F-D031-032F-91B5-MCategory
FictionThis work is included in the BFI Filmography.
- Collections
- Film / Video
35mm BW Positive - Safety - Combined - Viewing
35mm BW Positive - Safety - Combined - Viewing
35mm BW Positive - Safety - Combined - Viewing
35mm BW Positive - Safety - Combined - Viewing
DVD - Video - Viewing
view all - Scripts / DocumentsScript - Original story: Based on the novel by Penelope Mortimer - SCR-14699
Pumpkin Eater - Papers relating to the making of the film The Pumpkin Eater (GB, 1964). Director: Jack Clayton; Producers: John Woolf and James Woolf [Romulus Films]; Screenplay: Harold Pinter based on the novel by Penelope Mortimer. Cast: Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason. The papers include many script drafts; research work on psychiatry; shooting schedules; call sheets; notes on music and editing. [The intense story of a relationship. Jo, a woman with many children and several failed marriages, becomes negative and withdrawn when she discovers her latest husband Jake has been unfaithful to her. After psychiatric counselling she faces the reality that Jake's infidelity is balanced by his reliability as a breadwinner and father. The film concludes with Jo and Jake taking their first steps towards a reconciliation.] - JCL-9
Scripts and story development - Papers include breakdown of the novel; script notes by Jack Clayton; script drafts by Harold Pinter; notes on script meetings between Clayton and Pinter; working script copies; shooting scripts; additional dialogue for background characters, 1963 - 1964 - JCL-9-1
Letter to Jack Clayton from Penelope Mortimer - Letter to Jack Clayton from Penelope Mortimer [author of the original novel]. 'You asked me what The Pumpkin Eater is about. Here, after a good deal of thought, is the best I can do'. Mortimer goes on to explain ambiguously, but in detail, the interwoven themes including reality, fantasy, love, sex, hate, money and children. 'It boils down to the conflict between the fusion of reality and fantasy; and perhaps what results from some kind of uneasy balance between the two'. She concludes '...to think what your book's about - when you've already written what it's about at some length - is like looking at your own face in the mirror and trying to describe it as though you've never seen it before. Difficult, interesting - and very depressing'; typescript, undated .c 1962 - JCL-9-1-1
First draft script with accompanying note from Harold Pinter; With revisions - - First typescript draft, no date; With accompanying note 'It- so far. Love Harold', no date; - Typescript 'Revisions on first draft', with annotation [by Pinter?]. no date - JCL-9-1-4
Small pressbook held. Treatment and Information Folder Held. See FILM AND TELEVISION EPHEMERA List.
view all - Posters / Designs
- StillsPhotograph: film still - Portrait - SPD-1211479
Photograph: film still - Portrait - SPD-1211480
Photograph: print - Landscape - Black and White - bfi-00o-8nm
Photograph: print - Landscape - Black and White - bfi-00m-tss
Photograph: print - Landscape - Black and White - bfi-00m-tsr
view all - Articles
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- +The Pumpkin Eater
Work - 42092 - 1964-07-16 (Release)
United Kingdom - Film - Fiction
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