Rita Tushingham Movies

Director Tony Richardson adapted the screenplay of A Taste of Honey from the "kitchen sink" stage play by Shelagh Delaney. Rita Tushingham plays a working-class British teenager, living with her drink-sodden, libertine mother Dora Bryan. Denied affection by her selfish mother, Tushingham is pushed further in the background when Bryan impulsively marries her latest boyfriend Robert Stephens. The girl takes a job at a shoe store, then moves in with her kindly homosexual employer Murray Melvin. The two lost souls live in harmony until Tushingham becomes pregnant after a casual affair with black sailor Paul Danquah. Melvin comes to the rescue by offering to look after the baby. This relatively blissful state of affairs is short-lived; before long, Tushingham's hateful mother, having been kicked out by Stephens, descends upon her daughter and her "family," with all her debilitating emotional baggage intact. A poignant denouement caps this riveting slice-of-life drama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rita Tushingham was propelled into stardom with The Girl with Green Eyes. She plays a gawky young rural Irish girl who takes a room with a wise-cracking Dublin lass (Lynn Redgrave). Enter a middle-aged writer (Peter Finch), who makes a beeline for the shy, lonely Tushingham--completely ignoring her more worldly roommate. Girl with Green Eyes was liberally based upon Edna O'Brien's novella The Lonely Girl. With this one film, Rita Tushingham not only became bankable, but also what is known as a "critic's darling", meaning that she could do no wrong in the eyes of certain male reviewers. The bloom was off the rose fairly quickly, and soon Ms. Tushingham found herself contractually committed to one second-string project after another, including an ill-advised reteaming with actress Lynn Redgrave and director Desmond Davis in the resistible Smashing Time (67). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Colin (Michael Crawford, who much later won a Tony Award for his role in Broadway's Phantom of the Opera) is an uptight schoolteacher whose housemate, Tolen (Ray Brooks) is a consummate womanizer. Colin imagines a long line of young women in tight white sweaters on his stairwell, waiting to get into Tolen's room. Jealous of Tolen's incredible success with the ladies, Colin asks Tolen for advice on how to get a girl. When Tolen's advice doesn't seem very practical, Colin decides that his first order of business is to get a bigger bed. Colin is also trying to find a third roommate to take a spare room. Tom (Donal Donnelly), who seems compelled to paint everything in sight, happens by the house, and inserts himself in the spare room without so much as saying "hello." Nancy (Rita Tushingham of A Taste of Honey) is new in town, and wanders the streets of London in a fruitless search for the YWCA. She runs into Colin and Tom at the dump, where they are procuring a gigantic bed. They offer her a ride, and proceed to race through London on the bed. Colin seems too shy to speak much to Nancy, despite Tom's encouragement. Eventually, the trio reach Colin's house, where Tolen works his gruff magic on Nancy, and havoc ensues. Capturing late 1960s London in black-and-white, Richard Lester's The Knack. . .and How to Get It was released between the director's two successes with the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Help. The script, by Charles Wood (An Awfully Big Adventure) is based on a play by Ann Jellicoe. Future stars Jacqueline Bisset, Charlotte Rampling, and Jane Birkin appear briefly amid all the attractive young women in the film. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Every ten years or so, the all-purpose title The Trap is applied to a film about psychological rather than physical entrapment. This 1966 British/Canadian coproduction stars Oliver Reed as a roughhewn fur trapper of the 1890s. He has missed the annual "wife auction" due to inclement weather, and must settle for what's left: a timorous mute girl, played by Rita Tushingham. Though she lives in mortal terror of her husband, Tushingham nurses Reed through a near-fatal illness. The awe-inspiring location photography of The Trap frequently upstages the strenuous dramatics of its stars. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Marcello Mastroianni marks his English language film debut in this featherweight caper film directed by first-time director Christopher Morahan. Mastroianni plays the owner of a London boutique who also happens to be the fourth in line to succeed the Russian throne. Mastroianni, feeling that the collection of Russian imperial jewels actually belongs to him, determines to steal them and return them to their rightful owner -- himself. To carry out his plan, he puts together a cadre of pulchritudinous female crooks and arranges for his gal gang to model the imperial jewels at a fashion show. But, as usual, complications set in to mess up his plans. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Tom Pickle (Michael York) is the British rock star who travels to India to learn the sitar from Ustad Zafar Khan (Uptal Dutt). Much to the dismay of his aggressive agent Chris (Barry Foster), he leaves the money-making music world behind to learn about the exotic Indian instrument. Khan believes Tom lacks focus but has the talent, and a young hippie girl arrives (Rita Tushingham) who has the focus but not the natural talent that Tom possesses. There is a romantic angle between the hippie-girl Jenny and Tom, but it is more implied than demonstrated. Soon the Guru Khan is besieged by women who all try to capture his attention. He becomes frustrated over the lack of spiritual commitment of his students, as the rocker contemplates his return to swinging London town. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A simple man becomes bent on violent revenge in this thriller. John Kinsdale (George Kennedy) is an American who lives with his wife and three children in Naples, Italy, where he's employed by NATO as an electronics expert. Kinsdale and his good friend Mike McAllister (John Mills) are working to bring NATO's computer systems up to date, but Kinsdale loses all interest in his work when he comes home one evening to discover his wife and kids have been brutally murdered in their home. Emotionally devastated, Kinsdale has no idea why his family has been killed until Italian investigator Dr. Lupo (Raf Vallone) learns the Kinsdales were murdered by a band of radical terrorists who are targeting the families of Americans living in Europe until their jailed comrades are released from prison. Using his computer skills, Kinsdale sets out to find the terrorists who claimed the lives of his family, and will stop at nothing to get the justice he demands. Featuring a score by Ennio Morricone, The Human Factor was the final directorial credit for veteran filmmaker Edward Dmytryk. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Ettore (Giacomo Piperno) is a charming child at home; on the streets, he is a regular terror. He and his gang of children steal brazenly from the rich, and often engage in rape. After his father is imprisoned for a bungled theft, Ettore quits school and takes a job as a waiter in a bar that specializes in delivering meals to offices and wealthy customers. He has an affair with a rich girl, who shows him another side of life. However, when his father gets out of jail, Ettore masterminds a series of thefts using his experience as a delivery boy in rich neighborhoods. These capers make it possible for his happy family to possess its own bar, managed by the ever-wily Ettore. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, an ingenious, unseen thief recruits ex-cons to join his gang via short-wave radio in hopes of pulling off a huge caper. Unfortunately, a woman inadvertently stands in his way, and violence ensues as he tries to move her and carry on with his plans. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this silly Italian comedy, a trio of robbers burst into an Italian restaurant and place its five employees in a storage room to hold them hostage. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this mystery-thriller based on a novel by Ruth Rendell, Eunice (Rita Tushingham, wife of director Ousama Rawi) is a housekeeper who gets a job working for an older doctor and his wife in the U.S. Eunice is super-sensitive, rather homely, and illiterate. But she makes friends with a religious fanatic (Jackie Burroughs) who is quite willing to go along with whatever she has in mind. When a murder occurs, could Eunice and her good buddy be a bit more disturbed than first assumed? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The first directorial effort of British screenwriter Paul Greengrass, Resurrected is based on a true story that came to light during the Falklands War. David Thewlis plays an Army private who, after being listed as missing and presumed dead, wanders back into camp, a victim of amnesia. The army, embarrassed at the situation and not fully believing the boy's story, downplays Thewlis' return. His British home town had planned to give him a hero's welcome, but a newspaper story has intimated that the boy was a deserter. The general consensus is that it would have been better if Thewlis had really died, thus saving his neighbors from embarrassment. With no one, not even his parents, willing to believe the amnesia story, Thewlis is persona non grata, and to add to his troubles he is severely beaten by several of his former army buddies. An ironic coda caps this unpleasant glimpse at the darker side of human nature. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide