The Pumpkin Eater

“A Much Married Woman Who Drifts From Husband to Husband!”

Jo Armitage (Anne Bancroft), already the mother of several children, leaves her second husband to marry Jake (Peter Finch), a screenwriter with a successful career and a habit of straying. Jack Clayton directs Harold Pinter's adaptation of Penelope Mortimer's novel, the title taken from the nursery rhyme about Peter and his pumpkin shell. Jo stands among the children's things in the house she keeps, and the nursery rhyme's shell is the only image the film needs.