Kingsley Amis Movies

Screened on U.S. television in 2001 as a presentation of Masterpiece Theatre, Take a Girl Like You is a two-part adaptation of English novelist Kingsley Amis' 1959 novel of the same name. The titular "girl" is Jenny Bunn (Sienna Guillory), a beautiful and virginal young woman who has the exhausting habit of inspiring lust in every man (and certain women) whose path she happens to cross. Hailing from England's industrial north, 20-year-old Jenny moves away from home to take a teaching job in a small town just outside of London. After arriving at her lodgings, a room in the house of the acrimoniously married Dick and Martha Thompson (Robert Daws and Emma Chambers), Jenny makes the acquaintance of Patrick Standish (Rupert Graves), the town's resident lothario. Patrick, a Latin teacher at the town's posh public school, becomes immediately obsessed with Jenny and wastes no time in forming a strategy to get her in the sack. Although Jenny is attracted to Patrick, she is also intent on saving herself for marriage. Additionally, she finds herself dealing with the amorous advances of Graham (Ian Driver), Patrick's socially inept Scottish flatmate; Julian Ormerod (Hugh Bonneville), a local millionaire and friend of Patrick's; and Dick, her dodgy landlord. By the end of episode one, Jenny and Patrick are officially dating, but Patrick, who is frustrated by Jenny's steadfast refusal to put out, continues to pursue a sleazy pastime as an unrepentant womanizer.
~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by Kingsley Amis, the British miniseries Stanley and the Women starred future Inspector Morse leading man John Thaw as Stanley Duke, a fortysomething advertising executive. Stanley's life was thrown into turmoil when his son Stephen (Samuel West) was diagnosed a schizophrenic. Making matters worse, Stanley's quiet home was suddenly besieged by a plethora of females, among them his past and current wives. In adapting Amis' entertaining but thinnish novel for television, Nigel Kneale (a name more closely associated with science fiction-dramas) made some fascinating additions, and also "cleaned up" the character of Stephen, who as originally written was plagued with delusions of an international Jewish conspiracy (Amis had not intended this story element to be offensive, pointing out that such delusions were common amongst schizophrenics, but the producers felt it was safer to eliminate Stephen's burgeoning anti-Semitism). Stanley and the Women was beamed out by Central Television in four hour-long episodes, beginning November 28, 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Produced for British television, Haunted: The Ferryman is based on a story by Kingsley Amis. Jeremy Brett plays a novelist whose work begins permeating his consciousness day and night. The writer is haunted by visions of the characters he has created and will create. Foremost among these phantoms is a sinister ferryman, the traditional literary symbol for the Angel of Death. Natasha Parry and Lesley Dunlop also appear in this tantalizingly brief mood piece. Haunted: The Ferryman was adapted for TV by Julian Bond. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Subtitled A Film About London, this drama is a quintessential experimental counter-culture film of the late 1960s that centers on the questions raised by the Vietnam war. Renowned Shakespearean theater director Peter Brook serves as producer and director. It includes many members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, such as London actors Mark Jones, Robert Lloyd), and Pauline Munro, who essentially play themselves. They become obsessed with a photograph of a wounded Vietnamese child and begin discussing the war with their friends and fellow actors. They attend a series of lectures and teach-ins, discussing the issues of the day with a number of activists, including the American Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael. The discussions are combined with newsreel footage in a bizarre collage of images. Moved to do something, the group of actors puts on a series of skits about the war. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Lucky Jim is based on the same-named satirical novel by Kingsley Amis. The hero, Jim Dixon (Ian Carmichael), is a well-intentioned junior history professor in an unnamed British university. Hoping to impress the new chancellor, Jim succeeds only in bollixing up everything he touches. When he's not stuck in the middle of a slapstick car chase, Jim is trying to think up an excuse for that slightly inebriated blonde with whom he is innocently sharing a boudoir. Blunder piles upon blunder, until it looks as though Jim's chances at survival in the university are slim to none. But Fortune smiles upon fools and Kingsley Amis heroes, thus there's a happy ending. Lucky Jim delivers the laughs in full measure, though it's hardly the best of the Boulting Brothers productions of the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide