Le prix de la luxure

Of course this film is dated. Why else watch it? The story is too ugly today. This is glossy and the characters and clothes lovely.

This film has a long beginning, no middle and a short ending. It is still well worth watching.

Jennie is a young pretty girl from a working class family. She lives in Wales which is made to look like the dreariest place on earth. She is dying to get to London. Eventually she does but it is not under the best circumstances.

Jennie lucks out. She meets caring and decent Bob, who goes to protect her. She lies and claims to be pregnant to garner more sympathy.

Janet Munroe was quite lovely and a very good actress. John Stride does a good job as the kind and patient man who falls in love with her,

How does it turn out? Does Jennie build a life with this devoted young man or does she risk it all for a chance at the limelight?

The stunning Eastmancolor photography of Ernest Steward, Acker Bilk's swanky Jackie Gleason like score, (particularly the lush main theme) and location shooting in London, do much to distinguish this cautionary tale of a young woman treading down the well worn primrose path.

Janet Munro convinces as a the naive Welsh rustic, ("Jennie Jones") after La Dolce Vita, to which end she tosses decency aside, and heads to the big city, in her pursuit of a theatrical career. That her career is only to be that of "kept woman" is the discovery leading to the titular harvest.

Performances are all very apt, (particulary Francis Matthews, who nails the characterization of a louche libertine)and Director Peter Graham Scott certainly keeps our interest.

But just when one is most absorbed, most ready to watch Jennie's world unravel, the film ends, and one comes away feeling slightly cheated, with the sense that this MIGHT have been a great film, with a running time of 30 more minutes.

Still, it invites and deserves consideration alongside "Darling," and "Taste of Honey," as films that were also exploring unsavoury misfits in swinging 60's Great Britain.

Saw this at the Dominion, Twickenham, Middlesex, in November 1963 - it was the B-movie to a film I've forgotten - I happened to see Bitter Harvest second in the programme. I enjoyed the London setting of the film - Jenny has a room overlooking the railway tracks at Paddington but the film had an overall feeling of terrible sadness and waste - I went and looked at the dark river Thames flowing under the footbridge to Eel Pie island - then I went home and heard that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. So that's what I was doing when...

I don't know how I've missed this little gem. The terrific lost talent of Janet Munro and a whole host of top notch actors of the time like the acerbic Thora Hird and the tender John Stride give great performances here. The story is a natural successor to the gritty black and white Bryanston kitchen sink dramas of the late 50s early 60s. It sits well too with pre swinging 60s films like Alfie. A perfect snapshot of the social and sexual mores of the time. A special mention too for the beautiful colour cinematography and the evocative London locations. I don't think you'll be disappointed

B movie or A movie, it's not a grandiose masterpiece but it's still good and watchable. The actors are all good, the story is not quite great, it has some gaps but, we are all super intelligent viewers, aren't we, and we can imagine what is missing. The first 5 minutes are very powerful, when Jenny destroys the pillow with scissors, pours the drink on the photo to Karl (Alan Badel) and throws her dresses out the window. The final scene in which Bob (John Stride) crosses the street with Ella (Anne Cunningham) and they are almost hit by the ambulance containing Jenny's lifeless body is impressive and strong. Janet Munro did a great role.