Favourite School CP Movie Clips: 6
Do I really have to tell any reader of
this blog why the 1968 movie If … makes the list of my own personal all-time
favourite school corporal punishment scenes
from mainstream movies?
It comes in at number 6, but I suspect for
many of you it would be higher up the charts.
To recap, 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. There are many violent scenes in the film and one of the most
famous 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 guilty, punishment could be swift
and brutal.
You can read more about the scene here.
By a coincidence of timing, Malcolm McDowell
talked about the caning scene in If … in the Guardian
newspaper this week (1 August 2024). Here’s what he said.
The punishment scene in If … looked
very realistic. Did you suffer any pain?
Well, that’s down to good acting. Thank
you very much. Lindsay Anderson wasn’t a sadist. He wouldn’t put you through
being beaten. I had something in my ass. I did get walloped, it’s true, but I
had an exercise book on my ass, so it stung less. Lindsey rarely said anything
about one’s performance. He’d say: “All right, good, let’s move on,” and that
would be it. But he did say to me after that sequence: “Malcolm, if all else
fails in our film, at least we can look back on this sequence and say: ‘Job well
done’.”
Picture and movie credits: Paramount
More
items including Prefects, click here
Traditional School Discipline
Traditionalschooldiscipline@gmail.com
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