Bitter Harvest is a 1963 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Peter Graham Scott and starring Janet Munro and John Stride.

[5] Jennie Jones is a beautiful woman who returns intoxicated to her London apartment late one night and begins to destroy its contents in a rage, throwing her purse, keys and expensive gowns out into the street.

As a young girl, Jennie lives in an economically depressed, former mining town in Wales, where she works in her father's shabby general store and dreams of a more glamorous life.

The store is doing poorly, and Jennie is horrified to discover that her father wants her to move to Cardiff and live with her elderly aunts as a companion and caregiver.

She wakes up naked in bed in the men's apartment in London, having lost her virginity while drunk, and estranged herself from her father by staying out all night.

However, Jennie quickly becomes bored, and accepts an invitation from Bob's actor neighbour to attend a party in honour of a well-known producer, Karl Denny.

The morning after Jennie's drunken rampage, she is found dead amidst the wreckage of her apartment (including a smashed framed photograph of Denny), having overdosed on pills.

Cotes was an experienced theatre and television director who had worked several times with Ted Willis, author of the script for Bitter Harvest.

The filmmakers seem to have such empathy for Munro’s character to start off with... but then halfway through they appear to turn on her for the crime of not wanting to be married to the dull, controlling bartender....

"[15] In 1966 Peter Cotes sued Independent Artists for damages over his sacking, claiming he was wrongly fired and his reputation as a feature director had been ruined.

The judge, Mr Justice McKenna, ruled that Cotes had not breached a term of his contract, but the producers sincerely believed his version of the film would fail.