Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by

Paramount

Cert:

Cat.no: PHE 8082

Running time: 111 minutes

Year: 1968

Pressing: 2007

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 8 plus extras

Sound: Mono

Languages: English

Subtitles: English

Widescreen: 1.85:1

16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £15.99

Extras: Audio Commentary, Thursday's Children short film, Cast & Crew BBC4 programme, Interview with Graham Crowden

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Director:

Lindsay Anderson (Britannia Hospital, If..., In Celebration, Is That All There Is?, Look Back in Anger, O Lucky Man!, This Sporting Life, The Whales of August, Wham! In China, Wish You Were There, TV: Play For Today)

Producers:

Lindsay Anderson and Michael Medwin

Screenplay:

David Sherwin and John Howlett

Music:

Marc Wilkinson

Cast:

Mick Travis: Malcolm McDowell
Johnny Knightly: David Wood
Wallace: Richard Warwick
The Girl: Christine Noonan
Bobby Phillips: Rupert Webster
Rowntree: Robert Swann
Denson: Hugh Thomas
Fortinbras: Michael Cadman
Barnes: Peter Sproule
Stephans: Guy Ross
Headmaster: Peter Jeffrey
Mr Kemp: Arthur Lowe
Matron: Mona Washbourne
Mrs Kemp: Mary MacLeod
Chaplain (Reverend Woods): Geoffrey Chater
History Master: Graham Crowden
Classics Master: Charles Lloyd Pack

If...?

If... everything you saw was what happened in reality?

Well, according to IMDB.com, the title of the film was suggested by the secretary of Memorial Films when she overheard Lindsay Anderson and David Sherwin endlessly debating possible titles.

Either way, this is the tale of a boarding school with strict prefects, aka whips, all trying to come to terms with their homosexuality, lacklustre teachers and an incompetent headmaster. And, erm... that's about it, for a long time. I was led to believe that there'd be plenty of the old 'ultraviolence' to come, but that was a long way off.

As the school term began, at the beginning of the film, the students all settled in, the juniors finding their bearings and the seniors, including Travis (Malcolm McDowell), all playing up and annoying the whips to breaking point, as well as getting on the nerves of wannabe-whip Stephans (<>Guy Ross) who still had to slum it with the ne'er-do-wells.

Travis is listed as one of The Crusaders, along with Knightly (David Wood), Wallace (Richard Warwick), and Bobby Phillips (Rupert Webster) - with help from a girl who works at the cafe (played by Christine Noonan) - and things will eventually come to a head between them and the Whips, Rowntree (Robert Swann), Denson (Hugh Thomas), Fortinbras (Michael Cadman) and Barnes (Peter Sproule).

Phillips tried to stay ahead of the game,
putting his name down in forty years time for Big Brother 2008...
only to realise that Chanelle had got there before him in 2007.

There were moments of humour, too, such as when whips Rowntree calls out to a junior, "Markland, warm a lavatory seat for me, I'll be ready in three minutes." That made me laugh, since if a teacher or prefect tried that today, he'd be out on his ear from that job quicker than you could say "Gary Glitter!"

However, beyond this, there's a lot of not-a-lot going on. Travis and his friends often go to the study, while little by little, their lives - as well as those of all the other students - are made hell by the whips, inbetween them taking their own leave in their private room. Travis also seems to have a never-ending passion with a piece of African choral music that's never explained, either.

In fact, If... does tend to degenerate into a self-indulgent mess. I was waiting forever for the Crusaders to hit back against authority and when they eventually did, over 90 minutes in, it was such a damn squib they may as well not have bothered. We got the idea early on that boarding school is a royal pain, so why drag it out?

One point of note is that some scenes were presented in black and white. According to IMDB from the same link above, "Contrary to the story that says some scenes of the film are in B&W instead of colour because the production company was running short of money and saved money by having some scenes processed in monochrome, according to interviews with Malcolm McDowell, Lindsay Anderson and the cameraman, they first shot the scenes in the school chapel in monochrome because they had to use natural light that came in through the big stained-glass window, requiring high-speed film. The high-speed colour stock they tested was very grainy and the constantly-shifting colour values due to the angle of the light through the stained glass made it impossible to colour-correct, as well. So they decided to shoot those scenes in monochrome, and, when he saw the dailies, Anderson liked the way that it "broke up the surface of the film", and decided to insert other monochrome scenes more or less at random, to help disorient the viewer as the film slipped from realism to fantasy."

Also, fans of the film will be pleased to know that the DVD is available, at the Amazon link above, in a Limited Edition pack complete with the screenplay and a selection of picture cards. If...'s Philips looks like Channelle from Big Brother 8 - 1:00:00

The film is presented in the original 1.85:1 theatrical ratio and is anamorphic, but while you can obviously make out what's going on, it's certainly in need of a damn good remastering as the print certainly shows its age. The mono sound is functional, but the subtitles are required in some scenes where there's lots of shouting goes on, such as Travis fencing with his fellow Crusaders.

The extras are few and far between, starring with an Audio commentary from Malcolm McDowell and David Robinson if commentaries are your bag, but if not then you're left with the following:

• Thursday's Children (22:09): This is a short Oscar-winning documentary about a school for deaf children and narrated by Richard Burton. I've no idea what this has to do with If..., but it is something of the director's that's hard to find so I can only imagine it was put there for completeness.

• Cast & Crew (42:07): Quite a worth extra, since it's something that'll never get shown again on TV, this is a BBC4 discussion show from 2004 presented by Kirsty Wark, with guests including writer David Sherwin, producer Michael Medwin, cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, assistant director Stephen Frears and assistant editor Ian Rakoff, plus, away from the studio, Malcolm McDowell.

  Sadly, though, while this will be of interest for fans of the main movie, like the above short film, this is also absent of chapters so you can't easily skip forward a few minutes at a time. There's only one (or 2 if you count the one which takes you right to the end... which I don't).

• Interview with Graham Crowden (14:37): aka the History Master. Filmed in 2007, he's one of those actors you feel like you've seen in a million things but don't know his name. Fans of gentle sitcoms will mostly remember him as Tom in Waiting for God, and more info about him can be found at IMDB.com

The DVD menus are static and silent, there are subtitles in English only, plus a hearing-impared option, but the amount of chapters for a film of this length is nothing short of ridiculous. There are eight - one each for the separate parts of the movie, but that's not much good at all. My rule of thumb is that there should be one chapter for each five minutes of something, at the very least, plus ones for opening and closing credits, so since the opening chapter lasts almost 20 minutes that's complete madness. Very poor show, Paramount.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2007.

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

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