short-changes a gang member and is attacked by the whole gang. Jim sees Mike being beaten, but instead of helping Mike, Jim hurries away pretending he saw nothing and has a tryst with another fair worker. The severely injured Mike is hospitalized and cannot return, and Jim gets a promotion that was supposed to go to Mike. Jim contacts Terry, who is now at university, but discovers that Terry and the girls at his university look down on his lifestyle and musical tastes. Jim decides to return home after two years, finding his resentful mother struggling to run the grocery shop and care for her father, now an invalid. Jim helps his mother with the shop and starts dating Terry's sister Jeanette over the objections of her mother and Terry. Unlike all his previous dates, Jim does not have sex with Jeanette, even though she is willing to do so out of love for him. Jim and Jeanette marry, with Terry and her mother wrongly assuming she must be pregnant. Jim, angry at Terry and ambivalent about losing his freedom, has sex with Terry's girlfriend Jean on the night before his wedding. Jim and Jeanette live with his mother and grandfather. Jim pretends to be going to night school, but is secretly spending his nights at rock n' roll shows. Jeanette gets pregnant and they have a son. Jean and Terry plan to get engaged, and Jean makes suggestive remarks to Jim in front of Jeanette. After talking with friends in a band, Jim leaves home, repeating the pattern of his father. Jeanette cries, but his mum is unsurprised. The film ends as Jim buys a secondhand guitar. Cast David Essex as Jim MacLaine Ringo Starr as Mike Rosemary Leach as Mary MacLaine James Booth as Mr. MacLaine Billy Fury as Stormy Tempest Rosalind Ayres as Jeanette Sutcliffe Keith Moon as J.D. Clover Robert Lindsay as Terry Sutcliffe Deborah Watling as Sandra Brenda Bruce as Doreen Beth Morris as Jean Daphne Oxenford as Mrs. Sutcliffe Kim Braden as Charlotte Johnny Shannon as Jack Karl Howman as Johnny Sue Holderness as Shirley Érin Geraghty as Joan Sacha Puttnam as Young Jim Maclaine Peter Turner as Teddy Boy Production Development David Puttnam and his producing partner Sandy Lieberson met with Nat Cohen of EMI Films who agreed to provide half the budget. The other half - £100,000 - was obtained from Ronco