If....: School Days
By June 16, 2007
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and Read more »
- United Kingdom
- 1968
- 112 minutes
- Color, Black and White
- 1.66:1
- English
- Spine #391
SYNOPSIS: Lindsay Anderson’s If…. is a daringly anarchic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell made a hell of an impression as the insouciant Mick Travis, who, along with his school chums, trumps authority at every turn, finally emerging as a violent savior in the vicious games of one-upmanship played by both students and masters. Mixing color and black and white as audaciously as it mixes fantasy and reality, If…. remains one of cinema’s most unforgettable rebel yells.
Cast & CreditsOpen
Cast
| Mick Travis | Malcolm McDowell |
| Johnny | David Wood |
| Wallace | Richard Warwick |
| Rowntree | Robert Swann |
| The girl | Christine Noonan |
| Headmaster | Peter Jeffrey |
| Mr. Kemp | Arthur Lowe |
| Matron | Mona Washbourne |
| Chaplain | Geoffrey Chater |
| General Denson | Anthony Nicholls |
| History master | Graham Crowden |
| Classics master | Charles Lloyd Pack |
Credits
| Director | Lindsay Anderson |
| Produced by | Michael Medwin and Lindsay Anderson |
| Screenplay | David Sherwin |
| From the original script Crusaders by | David Sherwin and John Howlett |
| Director of photography | Miroslav Ondrícek |
| Music composed and conducted by | Marc Wilkinson |
| Production designer | Jocelyn Herbert |
| Editor | David Gladwell |
Disc Features
- Restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by cinematographer Miroslav Ondříček and assistant editor Ian Rakoff (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- Audio commentary featuring film critic and historian David Robinson and actor Malcolm McDowell
- Episode of the Scottish TV series Cast and Crew from 2003, featuring interviews with McDowell, Ondříček, Rakoff, director’s assistant Stephen Frears, producer Michael Medwin, and screenwriter David Sherwin
- Video interview with actor Graham Crowden
- Thursday’s Children (1954), an Academy Award–winning documentary about a school for deaf children, by director Lindsay Anderson and Guy Brenton and narrated by actor Richard Burton
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic David Ehrenstein as well as reprinted pieces by Sherwin and Anderson
