General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

The Reckoning

The Reckoning is a 1970 British drama film directed by Jack Gold, written by John McGrath, and starring Nicol Williamson as Michael Marler, a ruthless London businessman of Liverpool Irish descent who returns to his hometown to investigate his father's death.¹ It was adapted from Patrick Hall's 1967 novel The Harp That Once, carried the working title Matter of Honor, and was produced by the American Ronald Shedlo for Columbia Pictures.² The film is frequently discussed alongside Mike Hodges' Get Carter (1971), which it pre-dates by a year and whose basic premise, a northern man returning from London to investigate a family death, it shares.³

Key fact	Detail
Director / writer	Jack Gold; screenplay by John McGrath, from Patrick Hall's 1967 novel The Harp That Once¹^•²
Lead cast	Nicol Williamson as Michael "Mick" Marler, with Rachel Roberts, Paul Rogers, and Ann Bell¹^•⁴
Production	Columbia (British) Productions, Ltd.; producer Ronald Shedlo; cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth; editor Peter Weatherley²
Shooting	Late 1968, from 1 October 1968; locations in London, Liverpool, Wallasey, and Berkshire, with interiors at Shepperton Studios²^•⁵
Release	Reviewed by Variety and the Hollywood Reporter in 1969; released in Britain in 1970 and the United States in 1971²
Runtime / rating	111 minutes; BBFC certificate 12 in the UK, R in the US⁶^•²

Spoilers

Plot

Michael Marler has risen from a poor Liverpool Irish background to become a successful, abrasive executive in a London firm whose adding-machine business is threatened by the arrival of computers.⁷ When his elderly father has a heart attack after involvement in a brawl at a Liverpool working men's club, Marler drives north.⁸ His father dies just before he arrives, and although the death is recorded as accidental, bruising on the body and a friend's account lead Marler to conclude the father was beaten by a Teddy boy in a Liverpool pub.⁷

Revenge and class. The police decline to pursue the case, so Marler sets out to take revenge without involving them, a matter of honor in his own words.⁴ During the investigation he moves through the city's working men's clubs, bingo halls, and pubs, and begins a relationship with Joyce, a discontented local woman played by Rachel Roberts.⁹^•⁷ Having beaten the teenager who kicked his father, he returns to London, where at his wife's party his speech reverts to its working-class Liverpudlian tones and he punches a senior business associate.⁸^•⁷ Unlike the gangster Jack Carter, Marler is a businessman with no idea how to kill a man, and deciding what to do leads him to examine his masculinity and everything he has believed in.⁷

The ending departs from the revenge-film pattern: Marler returns to London and receives a promotion to Sales Director. After narrowly avoiding a crash by speeding down a one-way street on a red light, he exclaims to his terrified wife, "if I can get away with that, I can get away with anything!"¹⁰

Production

Columbia Pictures bought the rights to Patrick Hall's novel The Harp That Once in late 1967 and financed the film for producer Ronald Shedlo; a December 1967 Hollywood Reporter item reported that J. Lee Thompson was to direct.² Jack Gold, who had trained in actuality television at the BBC and had directed Williamson and McGrath's The Bofors Gun (1968), took over and made the film with an economy and sense of purpose that reviewers have traced to that television background.¹¹ Gold and McGrath had already worked together on The Bofors Gun, and McGrath, born in Birkenhead to Irish Catholic parents, drew on autobiographical elements.¹²^•¹³

Filming began on 1 October 1968, on location in London and Liverpool with interiors at Shepperton Studios.²^•⁵ Most non-London scenes were shot across the Mersey in Wallasey and Birkenhead, including one of the bridges connecting the two, and Everton's St George's church also appears.¹³ The Shaggy Calf pub in Slough, Berkshire, stood in for a southern location, and the film gives the impression that the Virginia Water area of Surrey was used.⁵^•¹⁴ The soundtrack makes use of Irish ballads, including "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms," sung at several points.²

Release

Although the film was shot in late 1968 and reviewed by Variety and the Hollywood Reporter in 1969, it was not released in Britain until 1970 and in the United States until 1971.² An October 1968 trade advertisement suggests Columbia had high hopes for the production, and one account holds that Columbia held up the release to let Tony Richardson's film of Williamson's acclaimed stage Hamlet build critical momentum first.¹⁵ The film was little seen for decades until Indicator (Powerhouse Films) issued its first UK home-video release, a dual-format limited edition on 28 August 2017, followed by a standard Blu-ray on 25 April 2022.³

Themes and reception

Class and mobility. The film examines the consequences of social mobility: Marler is an outcast in both worlds, rejected at home for betraying his roots and ridiculed by the home-counties elite, including his own wife, however high he climbs the corporate ladder.¹⁶ A contemporary Spectator review by Penelope Houston found that the film "splits down the middle," criticizing Gold and McGrath's determination to register disapproval of suburban life while acknowledging the film's energy and its "forlorn true feeling about age and disappointment."⁸ Later critics have praised Williamson's performance as a tour de force conveying barely suppressed rage and emotional complexity.¹⁶^•³

Prediction of Thatcherism. At a 2014 Edinburgh International Film Festival retrospective, Jack Gold recalled that John McGrath came to believe the film had predicted Thatcherism, "old-school hypocrisy and greed conjoined with modern vulgarity and brutality."¹² Academic commentary has made a related point: Marler's story of a working-class Liverpudlian and second-generation Irish immigrant promoted to Sales Director in a City of London firm, rewarded rather than punished for his violence, feeds into the entrepreneurial individualism later associated with Margaret Thatcher.¹⁰

Depiction of Liverpool. The film's Liverpool is unflattering. In a social-club sequence where Mick hopes to learn more about his father's death, spectators at a wrestling match are portrayed as monstrous caricatures through extreme close-ups, and the wrestlers are left perplexed in the ring as the punters descend into a mass brawl.¹⁰ The BFI lists the film among ten great films set in Liverpool, noting its abrasively authentic use of locations on both sides of the Mersey.¹⁷

Relation to Get Carter. The film is routinely compared with Get Carter (1971), which it pre-dates by a year, and both share the premise of a man traveling north from London to investigate a family death.³^•⁷ Commentators note the differences: Get Carter is explicitly a gangster picture in which the protagonist is adept at violence, whereas The Reckoning frames capitalism itself as a form of organized crime and ends with its antihero's actions rewarded rather than avenged.¹⁶^•⁷

Other films of the same title

The title has been reused several times. The Reckoning (2020), directed by Neil Marshall, is a British witch-hunt horror film set in 1665 during the great plague, starring Charlotte Kirk as a widow accused of witchcraft.¹⁸ A 2003 period drama of the same name, starring Paul Bettany and Willem Dafoe and directed by Paul McGuigan, was a UK-Spanish co-production with a budget of $14 million.¹⁹ Neither is connected to the 1970 Jack Gold film.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1970s › Released 1970 to 1974

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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