The L-Shaped Room (Blu-ray)

Part of the Vintage Classics collection

On its release in 1962, The L-Shaped Room attracted international acclaim for its star Leslie Caron (Gigi) who was awarded both a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for her portrayal of Jane.

A young French woman pregnant with a child conceived outside marriage, Jane arrives at a dingy Notting Hill lodgings to have her child in secret, but finds love and friendship among the assortment of outsiders living in the boarding house – all brought to life by Forbes’ sensitive ear for dialogue. In addition to the especially moving Cicely Courtneidge (Along Came Sally) as a faded music hall star growing old alone and Pat Phoenix’s (Coronation Street) portrayal of a tart with a heart, are Toby (Tom Bell, The Krays), a struggling young writer on the first floor who Jane falls for and Johnny (Brock Peters, To Kill a Mockingbird), a black jazzman rejected for more than his race.

Ever since Hitchcock’s The Lodger, the London boarding house has proved an evocative location through which to explore the underside of British society and The L-Shaped Room’s sensitive study of social morals at the dawning of the Sixties sexual revolution, is no exception.