Life for Ruth *** (1962, Michael Craig, Patrick McGoohan, Janet Munro, Paul Rogers, Megs Jenkins, Frank Finlay) – Classic Movie Review 11,649

Basil Dearden’s well-meaning and sincere 1962 British drama Life for Ruth helped caused the demise of the notable Allied Film Makers company.

Director Basil Dearden’s well-meaning and sincere 1962 British drama Life for Ruth [Walk in the Shadow] stars Michael Craig, Patrick McGoohan and Janet Munro, along with Paul Rogers, Megs Jenkins, Frank Finlay, and Maureen Pryor.

Michael Craig plays John Harris, a father who refuses to allow his dying daughter Ruth to undergo a blood transfusion because of his fundamentalist religious convictions in director Basil Dearden’s moving, if simplified 1962 film account of a clash between belief and medical practice. Harris is ostracised and put on trial for allowing his daughter Ruth to die.

Janet Munro is impressive as Pat Harris, his wife struggling with her loyalty and love for husband and child, and Patrick McGoohan has a good role as the doctor who makes a national scandal of the situation, seeking justice for what he sees as a girl’s needless death.

The original script by husband and wife team Janet Green and John McCormick is handled with care by director Dearden. Green and McCormick had written the successes Sapphire and Victim for Dearden and producer Michael Relph.

It is shot in realist black and white by Otto Heller.

It was shot Sunderland and Seaham Harbour, Co Durham.

Its World Premiere was on 30 August 1962 at the Leicester Square Theatre in London.

It cost £126,800 and earned £53,788 (by 1971), and so was a box office failure, and its losses – along with those of Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) – caused the demise of the Allied Film Makers company, formed by Basil Dearden, Michael Relph, Jack Hawkins, Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes. Whistle Down the Wind (1961) was a hit for the company.

Allied Film Makers films: The League of Gentlemen (1960), Man in the Moon (1960), Whistle Down the Wind (1961), Victim (1961), Life for Ruth (1962) and Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964).

Michael Craig had worked with Dearden and producer Michael Relph on Sapphire, but said he was ‘surprised to be offered the film – playing a North country working class chap seemed against type – but I was delighted to do it.’

Michael Francis Gregson, known professionally as Michael Craig, was born on 27 January 1929.

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,649

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