This Sporting Life was Richard Harris's first starring role in 2009.
John Russell Taylor in 1980 thought it a mistake to link This Sporting Life with the "kitchen sink" films released in the preceding few years because its "emotionalism" made it "unique", apart from Anderson's other workevery scene in the film is charged with the passion of what is not said and done, as well as what is
 However A Man Called Horse (1970), with Harris in the title role, an 1825 English aristocrat who is captured by Native Americans, was a major success

