Before Richard Burton became an acting great, a legendary carouser and the on-again, off-again lover of Elizabeth Taylor, he was a Welsh schoolboy named Richard Jenkins in need of guidance.
He found it in his English teacher, Philip Burton, who not only mentored him but made him his legal ward.
That bond is the subject of “Mr Burton,” starring Toby Jones and rising star Harry Lawtey, which opens the Mostly British Film Festival on Thursday, Feb. 5, at the Vogue Theatre in San Francisco. Emmy- and Tony-nominated actor Kate Burton (“Grey’s Anatomy”) is expected to attend in person to reminisce about life with her famous father and stepmom.
Richard Burton’s screen magnetism will then be on display the following day in the 1959 British melodrama “Look Back in Anger,” one of several retrospective screenings at the festival, which runs through Feb. 12.
Other highlights include a video interview with Pierce Brosnan before a screening of “Four Letters of Love” (Sunday, Feb. 8), a drama that also stars Helena Bonham Carter and Gabriel Byrne. Brosnan, a serious artist who’s had exhibitions of his work, plays a painter.