This is a film made for post-war austerity Britain's female cinema-goers. Its opening credits, featuring a shot of London Road, representing, for Marilyn (Sandra Dorne) the road out of drabness and rationing and everything closed and cold on a Sunday - just as they sit in the cinema and enjoy an hour's escape of wish fulfilment.
Marilyn mirrors the hopes of the female audience in that the road will lead to a bit of life and glamour. Anything would be better than old hubby George (Leslie Dwyer) and his garage/ café.
We see Marilyn dancing about in her husband's dismal road side café to American big band music on the jukebox ("bloody row"). Her body, almost trying to break free of the shackles of 50s clothes, only prompts her husband to say: "You'll catch your death of cold."
George can't understand her and resents her wanting something better. But what is there to be had anyway in 50s Britain? "I've given you all the comforts. A gas-fire in every room and electric light!" Humiliatingly, she can't even leave him and return to Dad as hubby has hired her from him in a bizarre arrangement. "£2 a week."
Marilyn's life changes when mechanic, Tom (Maxwell Reed) is hired. "I'm the new man", he tells her. I bet!
Tom's dialogue is full of ambiguous lines like: "Do you want me to light the fire?" When Marilyn first sees him, he's standing under a sign that says "lubrication service." Blimey!
Rosie, a retarded lesbian seemingly besotted with Marilyn is, conversely, the only character who talks any sense. Not that Marilyn is the sort of girl to take advice. All she wants to do is escape - in any way she can.
Music takes her away. The night of her affair with Tom is almost the real end of the film. "We'll go on pretending."
Everything after this is just fantasy: killing her husband; Everton turning up on the scene (not the Walton white socks but Nicky Everton played by Ferdy Mayne) and converting ex hubby's old pull-in into the sort of American style diner so improbable that you half expect to see Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner sitting in the corner sipping pre-mixed cocktails. It's packed to the rafters every night and the cloth-capped lorry drivers have been replaced by jitterbugging couples. Where have all these people come from?
Marilyn mirrors the hopes of the female audience in that the road will lead to a bit of life and glamour. Anything would be better than old hubby George (Leslie Dwyer) and his garage/ café.
We see Marilyn dancing about in her husband's dismal road side café to American big band music on the jukebox ("bloody row"). Her body, almost trying to break free of the shackles of 50s clothes, only prompts her husband to say: "You'll catch your death of cold."
George can't understand her and resents her wanting something better. But what is there to be had anyway in 50s Britain? "I've given you all the comforts. A gas-fire in every room and electric light!" Humiliatingly, she can't even leave him and return to Dad as hubby has hired her from him in a bizarre arrangement. "£2 a week."
Marilyn's life changes when mechanic, Tom (Maxwell Reed) is hired. "I'm the new man", he tells her. I bet!
Tom's dialogue is full of ambiguous lines like: "Do you want me to light the fire?" When Marilyn first sees him, he's standing under a sign that says "lubrication service." Blimey!
Rosie, a retarded lesbian seemingly besotted with Marilyn is, conversely, the only character who talks any sense. Not that Marilyn is the sort of girl to take advice. All she wants to do is escape - in any way she can.
Music takes her away. The night of her affair with Tom is almost the real end of the film. "We'll go on pretending."
Everything after this is just fantasy: killing her husband; Everton turning up on the scene (not the Walton white socks but Nicky Everton played by Ferdy Mayne) and converting ex hubby's old pull-in into the sort of American style diner so improbable that you half expect to see Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner sitting in the corner sipping pre-mixed cocktails. It's packed to the rafters every night and the cloth-capped lorry drivers have been replaced by jitterbugging couples. Where have all these people come from?