The White Bus
The White Bus | |
---|---|
File:The White Bus (1967 film).jpg | |
Directed by | Lindsay Anderson |
Screenplay by | Shelagh Delaney |
Based on | a short story by Shelagh Delaney |
Produced by | Lindsay Anderson |
Starring | Patricia Healey |
Cinematography | Miroslav Ondříček |
Edited by | Kevin Brownlow |
Music by | Misha Donat |
Production company | |
Distributed by | United Artists Corporation (UK) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 46 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The White Bus is a 1967 British [[short film]|short]] drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. The screenplay was jointly adapted[1] with Shelagh Delaney from a short story in her collection Sweetly Sings the Donkey (1963).[2] The White Bus was also the film debut of Anthony Hopkins.[3]
Plot
The main character, only referred to as 'the girl' (Patricia Healey) leaves London, goes north on a train full of football fans and takes a trip in a white double-decker bus around an unnamed city she is visiting, although it is clearly based on Manchester; Delaney was born and grew up in nearby Salford. The Mayor (Arthur Lowe), a local businessman, and the council's ceremonial macebearer (John Sharp) happen also to be taking the trip while they show the city to visiting foreigners.
Cast
- Patricia Healey – The Girl
- Arthur Lowe – The Mayor
- John Sharp – The Macebearer
- Julie Perry – Conductress
- Stephen Moore – Young Man
- Victor Henry – Transistorite
- John Savident, Fanny Carby, Malcolm Taylor, Alan O'Keeffe – Supporters
- Anthony Hopkins – Brechtian
- Jeanne Watts, Eddie King – Fish Shop Couple
- Barry Evans – Boy
- Penny Ryder – Girl
- Dennis Alaba Peters – Mr Wombe
History and production
The film was originally commissioned by producer Oscar Lewenstein, then a director of Woodfall, as one third of a 'portmanteau' feature entitled Red White and Zero, with the other sections supplied by Anderson's Free Cinema collaborators Tony Richardson and Karel Reisz[4] from the other short stories by Shelagh Delaney.
The "first real day's shooting" was on 19 October 1965, and took about a month to complete.[5]
The two other planned sections of the film developed into what became Richardson's Red and Blue and Peter Brook's Ride of the Valkyrie (1967), Reisz having dropped out, both of which are unrelated to Delaney's work. Of these, only The White Bus received a theatrical release in the UK.[6]
Notes
- ^ Hedling, E: "Lindsay Anderson: Maverick Film-Maker", Cassell, 1998, p.62
- ^ Shelagh Delaney "Sweetly Sings the Donkey", New York: GP Putnam, 1963; London: Methuen, 1964
- ^ "Sir Anthony Hopkins – Welsh actor".
- ^ Lindsay Anderson, Paul Ryan (ed) "Never Apologise: The Collected Writings", Plexus, 2004, p.105
- ^ Sutton, p.140-41
- ^ Sutton, p.146