The Roads to Freedom

This film seemed to me to be very close to the atmosphere of the books. The film characters of Mathieu, Daniel, Lola etc all seem practically perfect renditions of the book characters. The wretched TV company says it has no plans to repeat it.

it's pretty strange reading these remarks, something of an 'I thought it was just me' moment.

I saw the series as a teenager, had never even heard of Sartre, but the series just captivated me.

I still sing the theme music to myself and remember little snippets of action and dialogue - the knife through the hand, the wrestling match between a man and his teenage lover.

anyhow, the BFI definitely have a copy in their archive goodness only knows how that helps

maybe we should try to lobby BBC4 or something

Like all the other commenters, I would love to see this - I found it gripping, one of the consistently best dramatisations I've seen on television, and as one person said, it followed the books very closely. Acting, atmosphere, pace, costumes and settings were all superb. I thought Michael Bryant in the lead role was particularly good - he had the right air of worried intelligence. Rosemary Leach, too was good - earthy and vulnerable, and Daniel Massey - tortured and irritable. I've heard the BBC deleted a lot of their old television tapes so unless a private individual has recorded it we're all doomed.

The BBC are to start repeating this classic series on BBC4 from Wednesday July.27 2022! So folks set your recorders can hardly believe this is happening! A truly wonderful tv series that after 50 years I can still remember vividly. I was 15 years old at time and had never seen anything like this before. It starts with Mathieu ( Michael Bryant) being told by his mistress Marcelle ( Rosemary Leach) that she is pregnant. He is not happy feeling loosing control of his life. The music, is haunting and unforgettable as is Georgia Brown and Daniel Massey as a sadistic homosexual. The wait is over ENJOY.

Memory plays tricks! The title of the song is in fact "La route est dure" - based on a song of the French Resistance (So ignore my previous nonsense). I came across a copy on 7" vinyl. The performance by Georgia Brown is every bit as vivid as I had remembered, raw and impassioned, and way ahead of it's time as TV theme music.