# Georgy Girl
*Georgy Girl* is a 1966 British comedy-drama film directed by Silvio Narizzano, based on Margaret Forster's 1965 novel of the same name, about a plain, vivacious 22-year-old Londoner caught between three suitors and an unwanted baby.[1](https://www.filmsite.org/georgygirl.html) It stars [Lynn Redgrave](https://www.edgepedia.org/lynn-redgrave) in her first starring role, with [James Mason](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-mason), Alan Bates, and [Charlotte Rampling](https://www.edgepedia.org/charlotte-rampling), and it became one of the defining films of the "Swinging London" cycle.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writers | Silvio Narizzano; screenplay by Margaret Forster and Peter Nichols, from Forster's 1965 novel[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/aaad5618-4882-5ea7-a79d-9647f637208b/georgy-girl) |
| Principal cast | Lynn Redgrave (Georgy), James Mason (James Leamington), Alan Bates (Jos), Charlotte Rampling (Meredith), Bill Owen (Ted)[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl) |
| Production | Everglades Productions, released by Columbia Pictures; 99 minutes, black and white[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/aaad5618-4882-5ea7-a79d-9647f637208b/georgy-girl) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/georgy_girl) |
| US release | October 17, 1966 (wide)[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/georgy_girl) |
| Rating landmark | The first film to carry the MPAA label "Suggested for Mature Audiences" (M rating), a month after the Production Code was revised[1](https://www.filmsite.org/georgygirl.html) |
| Awards | Four Academy Award nominations (Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Original Song); Golden Globe for Best Actress, Comedy or Musical; OCIC Award at the 1966 Berlin Film Festival[5](https://2018.bff.palace.pipelabs.dev/films/georgy-girl) |
| Title song | "(Hey There) Georgy Girl" by Tom Springfield and Jim Dale, recorded by The Seekers, a top-forty hit[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Georgina "Georgy" Parkin (Lynn Redgrave) is a 22-year-old working-class woman whose parents are domestic servants in the household of the wealthy James Leamington (James Mason).[6](https://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/bitstreams/96482798-8a45-476d-af28-c0a0ef1f9c2f/download) Leamington has treated Georgy as a daughter, paid for her education at a Swiss boarding school, and now desires her sexually.[6](https://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/bitstreams/96482798-8a45-476d-af28-c0a0ef1f9c2f/download) Georgy shares a London flat with the beautiful, promiscuous Meredith (Charlotte Rampling), a concert violinist devoted to parties, and falls in love with Meredith's husband Jos ([Alan Bates](https://www.edgepedia.org/alan-bates)), a bank clerk.[6](https://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/bitstreams/96482798-8a45-476d-af28-c0a0ef1f9c2f/download) • [7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/10/29/more-feast)
When Meredith becomes pregnant, decides against motherhood, and later abandons the baby, Georgy lays plans to adopt the child.[8](https://repository.stu.edu/ulma/va/3005/1967/02-10-1967.pdf) In the ending, Georgy marries Leamington, now a widower, so that she can give Meredith's unwanted baby a home.[9](https://moviesanywhere.com/movie/georgy-girl) The final scene pauses on the crying baby's face as it is handed to the new bride, who looks by turns content, resigned, and sad.[10](https://www.screenslate.com/articles/georgy-girl)
## Production
Margaret Forster wrote the initial screenplay but, by her own account preserved in production histories, could not cut her own story; the playwright Peter Nichols, who had scripted *Catch Us If You Can* the year before and would soon succeed on stage with *A Day in the Death of Joe Egg*, came in and reworked the dialogue.[11](https://peterviney.com/film-the-60s-retrospectives/georgy-girl/) Narizzano was a Canadian director who had worked extensively in British television; *Georgy Girl* was the first film produced by Robert A. Goldston and Otto Plaschkes's Everglades company.[11](https://peterviney.com/film-the-60s-retrospectives/georgy-girl/) • [12](https://eiga.com/movie/45572/) [Vanessa Redgrave](https://www.edgepedia.org/vanessa-redgrave) was initially considered for the leading role before her sister Lynn was cast.[11](https://peterviney.com/film-the-60s-retrospectives/georgy-girl/)
The film was shot in black and white by cinematographer Ken Higgins, with costume design credited to [Mary Quant](https://www.edgepedia.org/mary-quant) and music by Alexander Faris and Tom Springfield.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl) Location work used out-of-the-way corners of London; the dome of [St Paul's Cathedral](https://www.edgepedia.org/st-pauls-cathedral) is still visible under scaffolding, cleaning that had only recently begun.[7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/10/29/more-feast) • [11](https://peterviney.com/film-the-60s-retrospectives/georgy-girl/)
## Reception and awards
The film was a commercial and critical success. Brendan Gill, reviewing it in *The New Yorker* in October 1966, called it a "superb English movie" whose majority of scenes are hilarious but whose underlying view of the human condition is "bleak indeed," and judged that James Mason, in a "stunning portrayal of the widower," failed to steal the picture from Redgrave.[7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/10/29/more-feast) London's *Daily Express* called "the whole film a delight," though [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael) questioned its ambivalent tone, writing that viewers may find themselves laughing "in discomfort or even stupefaction."[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl) Retrospective assessments have been mixed: Emanuel Levy called it a charming comedy of 1960s mores that "has not dated particularly well," while Dennis Schwartz called it "an empty film posing as something more substantial."[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/georgy_girl)
Redgrave's performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, in a year she competed against her own sister Vanessa (nominated for *Morgan!*); both lost to [Elizabeth Taylor](https://www.edgepedia.org/elizabeth-taylor).[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl) Mason was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Ken Higgins for Best Cinematography, and the title song for Best Original Song.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl) Redgrave won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, and the film won the OCIC Award at the 1966 Berlin Film Festival.[5](https://2018.bff.palace.pipelabs.dev/films/georgy-girl) The National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures named it best film for mature audiences of 1966, rating it A-4 ("morally unobjectionable for adults, with reservations") and observing that "for all its wit and comedy, 'Georgy Girl' is a serious film about a young girl of instinctively sound principles who comes in conflict with an amoral post-Christian environment."[8](https://repository.stu.edu/ulma/va/3005/1967/02-10-1967.pdf) The film recorded a domestic box office of $16,873,162.[13](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Georgy-Girl)
## Swinging London and the British New Wave
*Georgy Girl* is usually grouped with the "Swinging London" films of the mid-1960s, alongside *Darling*, *Alfie*, and *The Knack ... And How to Get It*.[14](https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol2/OSTCB/TC-OSTCB-3960.pdf) The film historian Robert Murphy describes it as the last Swinging London film to be made in black and white, presenting a world not much more glamorous than the northern settings of earlier British New Wave films.[15](https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/28597/1/Final%20version%20-%20with%20amendments.pdf) Pamela Church Gibson, a scholar at the London College of Fashion, argues that the so-called Swinging London films are best understood as a continuation of the British New Wave transported to a metropolitan consumer culture, and that they carried moralistic subtexts around gender, sexuality, class, and power beneath their surface of liberation.[16](https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/10471/)
The film's treatment of its heroine has drawn feminist re-reading. Leanne Weston calls it "a comedy of manners turned social critique set amidst the backdrop of 'Swinging London'", about "a world and a girl in transition."[17](https://www.top10films.co.uk/50764-georgy-girl-is-no-feminist-statement/) Redgrave herself later resisted the soft-hearted reading of the character, telling an interviewer that Georgy was "very ruthless... manipulating and very shrewd."[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl) Reviewers have noted its resemblance to the later *Bridget Jones* films in its portrait of an ordinary, self-deprecating single woman.[1](https://www.filmsite.org/georgygirl.html)
## The title song
"(Hey There) Georgy Girl," written by Tom Springfield with lyrics by [Jim Dale](https://www.edgepedia.org/jim-dale) and recorded by the Australian group [The Seekers](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-seekers), boosted the film strongly and became a top-forty hit in its own right.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl) The song's upbeat lyrics, addressed to a girl who should stop moping and find love, gave many listeners a mistaken impression of the film as a light romantic comedy; one later reviewer wrote that he had assumed from the song that it was "an ugly duckling romantic comedy" and found instead a bleak, zany comedy.[18](https://oldyorkeronline.com/georgy-girl/)
## References
1. [Georgy Girl (1966), Filmsite (Tim Dirks)](https://www.filmsite.org/georgygirl.html)
2. [Jeff Stafford, "Georgy Girl," Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33743/georgy-girl)
3. [Georgy Girl (1966), British Film Institute](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/aaad5618-4882-5ea7-a79d-9647f637208b/georgy-girl)
4. [Georgy Girl, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/georgy_girl)
5. [Georgy Girl, MINI British Film Festival 2018](https://2018.bff.palace.pipelabs.dev/films/georgy-girl)
6. [Representations of Swinging London in 1960s British Cinema (thesis excerpt on Georgy Girl)](https://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/bitstreams/96482798-8a45-476d-af28-c0a0ef1f9c2f/download)
7. [Brendan Gill, "More Feast," The New Yorker, October 22, 1966](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/10/29/more-feast)
8. ["'Seasons,' 'Georgy Girl,' 'Shop On Main St.'" National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures awards report, 1967](https://repository.stu.edu/ulma/va/3005/1967/02-10-1967.pdf)
9. [Georgy Girl, Movies Anywhere](https://moviesanywhere.com/movie/georgy-girl)
10. [Madelyn Sutton, "Georgy Girl," Screen Slate, March 24, 2017](https://www.screenslate.com/articles/georgy-girl)
11. [Peter Viney, "Georgy Girl," Peter Viney's Blog](https://peterviney.com/film-the-60s-retrospectives/georgy-girl/)
12. [ジョージー・ガール：作品情報, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/45572/)
13. [Georgy Girl (1966), The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Georgy-Girl)
14. [Representations of Swinging London in 1960s British Cinema, Library and Archives Canada](https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol2/OSTCB/TC-OSTCB-3960.pdf)
15. [Theories of the Subject: British Cinema and 1968, University of Stirling](https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/28597/1/Final%20version%20-%20with%20amendments.pdf)
16. [Pamela Church Gibson, "From Up North to Up West? London on Screen 1965–1967," The London Journal](https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/10471/)
17. [Mark Fraser, "Review: 'Georgy Girl' Is No Feminist Statement," Top10Films, 2019](https://www.top10films.co.uk/50764-georgy-girl-is-no-feminist-statement/)
18. ["Georgy Girl," Old Yorker, May 8, 2022](https://oldyorkeronline.com/georgy-girl/)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1960s*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license