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

 

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 More items including Prefects, click here


Traditional School Discipline

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