Movie: The Guinea Pig

The Guinea Pig is a truly dreadful film made notable only because Richard Attenborough gets his backside caned not once but twice.

It was made in 1948 when Attenborough was 25 years old. He plays Jack Read, a working-class boy who wins a scholarship to an elite English public (that is private fee-paying) school as part of a post-World War Two experiment in bringing boys of different social classes together. I’ll leave it to the sociologists to tell us how well that sort of thing works.

Attenborough is a fag (servant) for a senior boy and gets caned for burning his toast. The actor playing the prefect looks about forty.

The second time he opts for a caning from his housemaster for going out with a girl which is against the rules.

 Attenborough hardly makes a convincing fourteen-year-old and I have heard it said the make-up people had their work cut out trying to cover up his bald patch.

The film which in some countries had the title The Outsider made by Pilgrim Pictures appears to be out of copyright and you can download it free-of-charge here.

Pictures and video credit: Pilgrim Pictures

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