If...

An anti-establishment satire based on a group of “crusaders” who rebel against the confines of middle class mores at an English boys’ boarding school. The film was controversial and divisive when released in 1968. Now it seems like a bit of harmless lunacy. It’s still funny and fun to watch, but I can imagine that it provoked quite strong feelings in its day. It stars Malcolm McDowell who went on to make A Clockwork Orange, a role which is almost a natural progression from the angry and disaffected young Mick Travis he plays here. The film is an odd combination of realism and fantasy. It’s hard to say exactly where it crosses over from one to the other. Do the scenes of rebellion actually occur or are they simply in the minds of the protagonists? In one of the strangest moments the Headmaster insists that three of the boys apologise to the Bishop for a prank. He then opens a large drawer in his office revealing the Bishop in repose. He sits up to accept the boys’ apology. The young female character (billed simply as “the girl”) seems to magically pop in and out of scenes, very much as though she is there only in the thoughts of the boys. McDowell and Director Lindsay Anderson revisit the Mick Travis character in a later movie, Britannia Hospital, which is now on my ‘must see’ list.