Taglines: Don’t get caught was what she wasn’t taught.
Up the Junction movie storyline. 18 year-old Polly (Suzy Kendall) decides to turn her back on her wealthy background in Chelsea and undertake a more ‘down to earth’ lifestyle. She moves to Battersea and gets a job in a sweet factory where she is initiated into a way of life she had previously been sheltered from. She later meets Peter, a nineteen year old second-hand furniture assistant, who aspires to be part of the world she has just left. The film centres on the relationship between two young people with conflicting ambitions.
Up the Junction is a 1968 British color film, directed by Peter Collinson and starring Dennis Waterman, Suzy Kendall, Adrienne Posta, Maureen Lipman and Liz Fraser. It is based on the 1963 book of the same name by Nell Dunn and was adapted by Roger Smith. The film’s soundtrack was by Manfred Mann. The film followed Ken Loach’s BBC TV adaptation of 1965, but returned to the original book. It generated less controversy and impact than the Loach version.
About the Story
The film begins with a Rolls-Royce leaving a large house… it then moves to a train crossing the Thames and passing Battersea Power Station. Wealthy young heiress Polly Dean (Suzy Kendall) gives up a privileged life in Chelsea and moves to a working-class community in Battersea, where she takes a job in Macrindles confectionery factory in an attempt to distance herself from her moneyed upbringing and make her own living.
On the factory floor everyone is singing and all are friendly, but perhaps somewhat unhygienic – smoking as they work on the sweets. The other girls mainly discuss men and sex. She is asked to join the others in the pub, The Pavilion. They get the local boys to buy them drinks. She declines a lift home on a motorbike. Some are heading “up the junction”. Polly walks home.
The next day Polly arrives at Clapham Junction railway station with a suitcase. She is finding a flat of her own. The agent thinks the flat is not good enough for her. She takes it anyway. She goes to the local market and buys a single banana, and eats it on a chair outside a junk shop.
The assistant Pete (Dennis Waterman) tells her it is not a cafe but when the owner (Alfie Bass) comes out she says she needs furniture so he becomes more friendly. She buys an armchair and a sofa… and also finds a kitten. Pete gives her a lift back to her flat and unloads the furniture. He asks her on a date. He presumes she wants to go to the West End but she says she wants to walk around the streets of Battersea.
She becomes friends with two working-class sisters, Sylvie (Maureen Lipman) and Rube (Adrienne Posta). Rube becomes pregnant and has a traumatic illegal abortion. Tragedy then strikes when Rube’s boyfriend Terry (Michael Gothard) is killed in a motorcycle accident.
Up the Junction (1968)
Directed by: Peter Collinson
Starring: Suzy Kendall, Dennis Waterman, Maureen Lipman, Adrienne Posta, Liz Fraser, Linda Cole, Doreen Herrington, Jessie Robins, Barbara Archer, Ruby Head, Susan George, Sandra Williams
Screenplay by: Roger Smith
Production Design by: David Griffith
Cinematography by: Arthur Lavis, Tony Spratling
Film Editing by: John Trumper
Art Direction by: Seamus Flannery, Kenneth Jones
Makeup Department: Carol Beckett, Dorrie Hamilton
Music by: Mike Hugg, Manfred Mann
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Paramount Film Service (UK)
Release Date: January 25, 1968 (UK)
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