Review for The Kitchen

This dramatic adaptation of a soul-searching play was released at a time when there was a real appetite for such material. The beats had made a big splash on both sides of the pond and, in stark contrast to most post-war British entertainment to that point, young people were learning to question the status quo. Britain was no exception and quick to adopt the beat viewpoint with bearded hipsters filling soho coffee shops clutching their copies of Ginsberg’s Howl and home-grown angry young man Colin Wilson’s ‘The Outsider’ – both published in 1956. Five years later and such questioning had become almost main-stream.


Put into this context, ‘The Kitchen’ starts to make sense. Based on the first play by Arnold Wesker (who now has some 50 plays under his belt and who is now a sir) who was himself just 29 at the time of writing (1957), putting him firmly in the ‘angry young man’ stereotype himself. Having worked in a busy kitchen himself, it seemed the perfect microcosm to look at some of the world’s bigger issues – from the most basic existential questions to some key political issues of the day.


Virtually the whole of the film takes place behind the scenes in a busy restaurant (we never see the restaurant itself though the drama does spill out into London’s busy streets on occasion). So from the outset, this limited filmic scope screams ‘adaptation of a stage play’ though, to be fair, the tight direction means it never feels too stagy.


Released in 1961 it was directed by Oscar winner James Hill and had a cast of ‘real actors’ like Carl Mohner, Tom Bell and Eric Pohlmann who had all cut their teeth treading the boards (a jackpot in mixing metaphors there folks! ;)

So what’s it about? Well, ostensibly it’s about the kitchen staff in a busy under-funded restaurant battling on a daily basis to meet the demands of a vast clientele. But what becomes apparent is that the catering trade, perhaps above all others, attracts the most diverse work-force imaginable. In this case that means staff from all over the globe, each of whom faces their own challenges and daily struggles. There are some older men who just want to keep their head down till it’s time to retire; some younger workers who love flirting with the waitresses and having a laugh whenever the opportunity strikes. Then there are the serious ones, who think deeply about life and their lot in it.


There’s Peter, the German cook, who is in love with waitress Monica, and who constantly asks her to leave her husband. When it becomes clear that that’s never going to happen the pressure of the day becomes too much and he goes berserk, smashing plates and pushing over tables. When the melancholic boss arrives to see the seen all he can ask is: ‘Is there anything better than this? Is there anything more?’ as if he too is about to have a breakdown.



The film feels very righteous and that’s hardly surprising when you think it was produced by ACT films which were funded by the British Film Union. Righteous speeches like this one sit a little uneasily in the film although they probably worked fine in the theatre.

"… now listen to this, he says 'Did you go on that peace march yesterday?' So I says, yes, I did go on that peace march yesterday. So then he turns round to me and he says, 'You know what? A bomb should have been dropped on the lot of them! It's a pity', he says, 'that they had children with them 'cos a bomb should have been dropped on the lot!' And you know what was upsetting him? The march was holding up the traffic, the buses couldn't move so fast …And you should have seen the hate in his eyes, as if I'd murdered his child…"

The Kitchen is presented here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio and it looks really top-notch. Network (in cahoots with Studio Canal) are doing some splendid work on these transfers. Even these now slightly obscure films are getting superb transfers, as if somebody somewhere has really cracked how to do this with little budget. I guess improvements in transfer technology have helped but this really does look far better than you might expect.

Extras include a couple of two page publicity leaflets (as PDF’s) and an image gallery.

Though arguably a little dated and a tad too righteous, ‘The Kitchen’ remains a good film if not a great one and well worth picking up if you have even the slightest interest in British film-making from the early sixties.