Movie: If ...
If ... is
a satire of English public school life, the film follows a group of pupils who
stage a savage insurrection at a boys’ boarding school. The film was the
subject of controversy at the time of its release, receiving an X certificate
(meaning suitable for over eighteens only) for its depictions of violence.
One of those violent scenes involves a vicious
prefects’ beating. Back in the day the so-called ‘public schools’ (that is
elite, private schools) allowed prefects – senior pupils – to control
discipline among the younger boys. That discipline included liberal doses of flogging.
The prefects operated almost as a ‘star chamber’
where they could call a boy – or boys – to a kind of trial. If they were found
guilt, punishment could be swift and brutal.
The film If ..., produced and directed by Lindsay Anderson, was released in 1968 and starred Malcolm McDowell. He is one of the boys who is summoned to
the gym to receive a thrashing. McDowell who was in his mid-twenties doesn’t
make a plausible seventeen-year-old, but, I suppose, nothing about the film is
plausible. Spoiler alert! It ends in an armed rebellion.
There is much more to the plot than this and you can read more here.
The movie is available
on streaming services.
Picture and movie credits: Paramount
For more Movie Clips, click here
Traditional School Discipline
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