Salt-of-Earth youngster Dickie Attenborough is packed off to a posh school with class conflict ensuing, as well as the first ever on-screen ‘arse!’, apparently. Anthony Newley, Joan ‘Marple’ Hickson, Timothy ‘Thomas “Tom Tom” Thompson, you know, the bluff pre-Griffiths caretaker off of Grange Hill’ Bateson and Professor Digby Wolfe of the University of New Mexico all look very young indeed.
Glenn Aylett
October 26, 2023 at 3:44 pm
This old clunker still turns up on Film 4 every so often. I watch it as it is quite an accurate portrayal of an old fashioned public school with its arcane rules, snobbery, weird attitude to girls( Attenborough’s character is caned for daring to see a local girl) and plenty of rugger. However, not one of Attenborough’s greatest roles, although as a 25 year old, he plays someone ten years younger quite convincingly.
Glenn Aylett
October 26, 2023 at 3:48 pm
This old film still turns up on Film 4 every so often. Attenborough plays a schoolboy quite well, but the main reason to watch is how awful boarding schools were in the 1940s, where prefects could cane younger boys, snobbery was rife and good old rugger was treated like a religion. I had an English teacher who attended a boarding school in thie era and said The Guinea Pig was quite true to real life.