The L-Shaped Room
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The L-Shaped Room is a 1962 film, directed by Bryan Forbes, which tells the story of a young French woman, unmarried and pregnant, who moves into a London apartment building, befriending a young man in the building. It stars Leslie Caron and Tom Bell.
The movie was adapted by Bryan Forbes from the novel by Lynne Reid Banks.
It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress (Leslie Caron).
[edit] Synopsis
The L-Shaped Room follows a young French girl, Jane (Leslie Caron), who arrives alone at a boarding house in Fulham, London. Beautiful and withdrawn, she encounters the residents of her house through the meandering first act of the film, each a social outsider in their own way.
Jane is pregnant, we learn, and has no desire to marry the father. On her first visit to a doctor, she wants to find out if she really is pregnant and consider her options. The doctor's facile assumption that she must want either marriage or an abortion so insults her that she determines to have the child.
[edit] Cast
- Leslie Caron - Jane Fosset
- Tom Bell - Toby
- Brock Peters - Johnny
- Cicely Courtneidge - Mavis
- Avis Bunnage - Doris
- Bernard Lee - Charlie
- Patricia Phoenix - Sonia
- Gerry Duggan - Bert
- Emlyn Williams - Dr. Weaver
The Smiths chose to open their album, The Queen Is Dead, with a scene from this film, Christmastime at the house with Mavis leading everyone through an off-key chorus of "Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty." Morrissey again used a sample from the movie in his song "Maladjusted".
