TSPDT

Key Production Countries: UK, USA
Key Genres: Drama, Comedy, Psychological Drama, History, Romance, Comedy Drama, Dark Comedy, Farce, LGBT-Related Film
Key Collaborators: John Addison (Composer), Antony Gibbs (Editor), Ralph Brinton (Production Designer), John Osborne (Screenwriter), Neil Hartley (Producer), David Watkin (Cinematographer), Walter Lassally (Cinematographer), Robert K. Lambert (Editor), Albert Finney (Leading Actor), Nigel Kneale (Screenwriter), Harry Saltzman (Producer), Oswald Morris (Cinematographer)

"Whatever happened to Tony Richardson? Once the roars of approval, applause and glitter of the Oscar for Tom Jones died away, Richardson vanished from the limelight. Although he soldiered on in the cinema, his stage work was much more satisfactory. Almost all of his films since those heady days were unsuccessful and few of them even commercial. There are some who contend that Richardson never made a good film anyway. But this is far from true." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Illustrated Guide to Film Directors, 1999)

"From the time he joined the Free Cinema movement to Blue Sky, he never fell back on a formulaic approach or took the secure path. He is responsible for launching the careers of several actors and movie personalities who are now successful. Almost all of his films include nuanced and compelling performances from actors. In addition, he had a gift for adapting literature to the screen, and was able to convey the mood and setting of a novel even when he improvised and interpreted the text. In many of his films, Richardson’s keen sense of humour and gift for handling dialogue add a lightness that is uniquely his own." - Sandra Koponen (Senses of Cinema, 2007)

"There are some directors who are so umbilically linked to a cinematic movement or historical moment that when that time has passed, they seem to be brutally cut adrift. The theatrical and filmic work of Tony Richardson defined the new wave of British grainy realism, but he dramatically lost his way when he left the kitchen sink… As a director, Richardson made significant contributions to the kitchen sink genre with his poignant, minor-key adaptation of Shelagh Delaney's slice of provincial poetry A Taste of Honey (1961) and Alan Sillitoe's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962). For many, though, Richardson's masterpiece is Tom Jones (1963)… Without a realist footing or social purpose, his subsequent films of that decade often exhibited a directorial uncertainty, nervously hiding behind the smoke and mirrors of stylistic flamboyance." - Lloyd Hughes (The Rough Guide to Film, 2007)

"Tony Richardson was a British film and theatre director best known for spearheading the British New Wave with films that tackled societal issues and class distinctions in the 1960s. His most notable works include Look Back in Anger, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, and the Academy Award-winning Tom Jones." - Bronze Screen Dream

"Along with Lindsay Anderson and Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson was a central figure in the British New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s which swept the cobwebs from a too cosy national film culture, introducing a youthful vigour and realism… Although Richardson's work is patchy, he was a director of real vision, an individualist whose films are often about outsiders at odds with their own society. He is a film-maker desperately in need of re-evaluation. He was married to the actress Vanessa Redgrave and his daughters, Joely and Natasha, are also actors." - Robert Shail (British Film Directors: A Critical Guide, 2007)