I decided to watch both Up the Junction adaptations back to back. The Ken Loach-directed version he did for BBC in '65 which was an episode of the BBC anthology drama series The Wednesday Play and the Paramount Studios remake from '68 directed by Peter Collinson. Both based on Nell Dunn's novel but are very different, each having strengths and weaknesses.

Unlike Loach, Collison remains more loyal to the novel and focuses on a Chelsea girl (Suzy Kendall of Giallo fame) who moves to a working-class community in Battersea to experience how the "other side" lives. How could Pulp's Common People not be inspired by this novel? It seems too dead-on.

One could write this off as the studio's cashing-in…

It was probably the ten million viewers who watched Ken Loach's Wednesday Play adaptation of Nell Dunn's novel Up The Junction in 1965 that convinced Paramount of the potential for success of a big screen version, released three years later. With Loach uninterested in repeating himself, future Italian Job director Peter Collinson took on the directing duties and returned to the original book to develop a more faithful tale of a Chelsea girl who heads South of the river to Battersea to experience real life.

Collinson's direction is suitably assured and, combined with the cinematography of Arthur Lavis and Tony Spratling, gives the film that wonderful 60s technicolour look that I always associate with the texture of Ladybird book illustrations;…

I'll get round to the Ken Loach version that prompted this cinematic adaptation at some point, but as things stand Peter Collinson's version wasn't all that great.

Compared to most kitchen sink dramas, Up the Junction lacks a lot of bite. There's not much to it other than Suzy Kendall experiencing how the other half live for the first two-thirds. It resembles something of more substance late on when Dennis Waterman berates her for her background while she tries to make a point about what money does or does not mean to her.

The balance in this scene is quite interesting but also frustrating because it should have delved more into Kendall's frame of mind about her upbringing and wealth.…

Watched this with Ken Loach’s BBC 1 adaptation and while Loach is clearly the more consummate filmmaker, I think my problem with both productions stems from the source material. I just couldn’t be bothered with any of these pathetic characters or their mundane plights, particularly in the “poor little rich girl” framing of Collinson’s version. I realize a key element of the kitchen sink movement is to shine a spotlight on the desperate and unsightly, but frankly, this miserable lot should’ve been kept in the dark.

I’d say Loach’s Wednesday Play is definitely worth a look (available HERE). There’s a lyricism to it that feels raw and spontaneous, achieved through remarkable technical means (the sound mix alone is a pioneering marvel),…

When we first meet Polly (Suzy Kendall) she's walking out of her Chelsea mansion and climbing into her chauffeur driven Rolls Royce only be be dropped off walking distance from what turns out to be her new job at a sweet factory. What's going on? We ask ourselves.

Well, what's going on is that privileged lifestyle and striking out on her own. She's taken under the wing of sisters Sylvie (Maureen Lipman) and Rube (Adrienne Posta) and falls for local boy Pete (Dennis Waterman).

In short she's slumming it, dissatisfied with a life where she can have anything she wants and doesn't have to fight for it, and thinking that she can pull the wool over the eyes of her…

the original ken loach version is the grittier and more lauded one, but because collinson adds elements of the swinging sixties film to it - especially with the manfred mann soundtrack, which is surprisingly bitter sweet - the film comes out as a sort of stealth populist film, full of brassy sisterhood and broad wideboy cliches for the first hour and then diving head first into abortions, spousal abuse and petty theft. polly is a lot more sympathetic a character than she would be these ways - we're essentially talking a benign variation of "common people" here - but still grounds the film, even if she's not very realistic as a character. collinson's greatest trick is to make everyone either…

Peter Collinson’s British drama in which a young woman swaps her upper-class life for a new existence in a cautiously dejected area of London. Starring Dennis Waterman, Suzy Kendall and Adrienne Posta.

Adapted from the novel of the same name by Neil Dunn, which was published five years earlier, the story concerns a fed up, wealthy London-girl from Chelsea who chooses to go ‘slumming’ in unhappy Battersea, gets a flat, begins factory-work and makes pals… of which one is forced to get an unlawful abortion.

Suzy Kendall gives an okay performance in her part as Polly, the woman who changes her way of life in an unhappy area of London, while Dennis Waterman is alright in his role as Pete,…