The Pumpkin Eater

Director: Jack Clayton Jack Clayton

Overview

Anne Bancroft stars as a restless, twice-married British woman with six children, whose third husband is a fledgling screenwriter (Peter Finch). When success spins Finch's head around, he begins to dally with women other than his wife. Meanwhile, Bancroft is forced to stay home and play "domestic goddess", a role for which she is utterly unsuited. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Bancroft wanders the streets of London in a vain search for a sympathetic ear. She eventually comes to grips with the situation at hand--but as in most of playwright Harold Pinter's works, the characters of The Pumpkin Eater are just as unfulfilled in the last scene as they were in the first. Anne Bancroft won a Cannes Film Festival award for her performance in this film.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/16/2010
UPC:	0043396360013
Original Release:	1964
Rating:	NR
Source:	ALLIED VAUGHN
Language:	English
Sales rank:	42,043

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Anne Bancroft	Jo Armitage
Peter Finch	Jake Armitage
Cedric Hardwicke	Mr. James
James Mason	Bob Conway
Janine Gray	Beth Conway
Rosalind Atkinson	Mrs. James, Jo's Mother
Alan Webb	Mr. Armitage, Jake's Father
Maggie Smith	Philpot
Eric Porter	Psychiatrist
Cyril Luckham	Doctor
Anthony Nicholls	Surgeon,Dinah,Elizabeth
John Franklin Robbins	Parson
John Junkin	Undertaker
Yootha Joyce	Woman in Hairdresser's
Leslie Nunnerley	Waitress at Zoo
Gerald Sim	Man at Party
Frank Singuineau	King of Israel
Faith Kent	Nanny
Gregory Phillips	Pete
Rupert Osborne	Pete
Michael Ridgeway	Jack
Martin Norton	Jack
Frances White	Dinah
Fergus McClelland	Fergus
Christopher Ellis	Fergus
Elizabeth Dear	Elizabeth
Sharon Maxwell	Sharon
Mimosa Annis	Sharon
Kash Dewar	Mark
Mark Crader	Youngest Child
Richard Johnson	Giles
David Langton	Actor
Georges Delerue	Composer

Technical Credits

Harold Pinter

Jack Clayton	Director
James Woolf	Producer
Harold Pinter	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Anne Bancroft's cathartic lead performance anchors The Pumpkin Eater, Harold Pinter's harrowing, elliptical tale of marital dissatisfaction. Though much of the film concerns her character's fitful bouts with depression, Bancroft charges every moment she's onscreen, employing an array of subtle gestures and facial expressions to convey what her repressed character cannot. Pinter and director Jack Clayton never resort to facile satire or pat assignations of blame; instead, the film charts the slow, irreversible manner in which a chasm can grow between husband and wife. As Bancroft's callous husband, Peter Finch perfectly conveys the subtle, damaging hypocrisies that eventually break his wife's spirit. James Mason has a particularly memorable supporting role as a vitriolic, passive-aggressive acquaintance of the couple. Bancroft won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her work in the little-seen British production, as well as her second Oscar nomination.