Ralph Thomas and Betty Box had a massive hit putting a group of attractive young actors in a tale of life at uni in Doctor in the House, so eight years later they tried again with this. Their eye for young talent was as sure as ever - this features John Hurt, Ian McShane, Virginia Maskell and Samantha Eggar, among others, which is pretty good.
However there are some notable differences. This movie is in black and white, not colour, and it's a serious piece, not a comedy. At times it's almost self consciously "angry young man" ish with McShane railing about the system or something. It's hard to sympathise that much when he's only at uni - he doesn't have to be there, uni is generally pretty good isn't it? (It's not like an oppressive school or workplace).
The Rank Organisation were supposed to have missed out on the British new wave, passing up the chance to finance Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. This feels like their attempt to join the party, only instead of trying to find new talent they went with Box and Thomas. Actually I can't really fault the direction - it's not flashy but it does the job. It's the clunky script, uninvolving characters and story. The dialogue is arch and self conscious, scenes are awkwardly staged... and you know something, Box and Thomas had a lot of control over their films, and this was co written by Nicholsa Phipps, one of their regular writers, so I probably should blame them.
The film struggles to focus on a story. McShane starts out going out with Eggar; Peter Rogers is a dean whose wife Virginia Maskell sleeps with students; she sleeps with McShane, and he's supposed to fall for her and I think we're supposed to care but if she does it a lot it kind of doesn't have the same impact; McShane is protective of friend John Hurt (I think they hint Hurt is gay but maybe I'm looking for depth that isn't there); McShane and Hurt do a stunt that goes horribly wrong; McShane is revealed to be a genius and heads off into the sunset.
Other support characters are sketchily developed. There's some horrible racist dialogue involving black student Johnny Sekka; Catherine Woodville looks as though she's going to do something interesting but never goes (she and the achingly pretty Eggar just talk about boys all the time). There's a lot of singing. The acting is very fine - all the people who went on to have careers (they also include Jeremy Brett) are impressive here.
It's a real curio of a movie. Did Box and Thomas make it to try and be "in" with the box office, or did it speak to them personally?
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