Lindsay Anderson’s third ‘Mick Travis’ movie is a crazy comedy eager to overstep lines of cinematic decorum. Britain in 1982 is a country at war with itself, torn by elitist snobbery and working-class revolt. Union grievances cripple the functioning of a major public hospital, on a day when the Queen is set to visit. A huge comic cast grapples with satire that reaches beyond cynicism to express total dysfunction. And the comedy has a wicked sting in its tail: Graham Crowden’s mad-as-a-hatter scientist has diverted National Health funds into grisly experiments with human body parts. The ‘visionary’ maniac spills more blood than Peter Cushing and Sam Peckinpah, put together.
Britannia Hospital
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1982 / Color / 1:85 widescreen/ 117 (111) min. / Street Date June 29, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99
Starring: Leonard Rossiter, Vivian Pickles, Graham Crowden, Jill Bennett,
Marsha A. Hunt, Joan Plowright, Malcolm McDowell, Mark Hamill.
Cinematography: Mike Fash...
Britannia Hospital
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1982 / Color / 1:85 widescreen/ 117 (111) min. / Street Date June 29, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99
Starring: Leonard Rossiter, Vivian Pickles, Graham Crowden, Jill Bennett,
Marsha A. Hunt, Joan Plowright, Malcolm McDowell, Mark Hamill.
Cinematography: Mike Fash...
- 7/7/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The screenwriter David Sherwin was a special friend. We went through many girlfriends, marriages, triumphs and disasters together. I even wore his father’s demob coat from after the second world war in the opening shot of If…. It was perfect. It was my entrance into film. It has become a rather iconic image.
David and I had a unique relationship: my first film as an actor was his first screenplay. I met him in 1967 at the audition of If….. The actress I was playing with, Christine Noonan, punched me rather hard in the face. I was knocked to the floor, my script flew everywhere. There was stunned silence and my eyes welled with tears from the shock of being hit so hard. When I regained my composure the energy between us became electric. It made for good drama. Lindsay Anderson, the director, called for the audition to end. David...
David and I had a unique relationship: my first film as an actor was his first screenplay. I met him in 1967 at the audition of If….. The actress I was playing with, Christine Noonan, punched me rather hard in the face. I was knocked to the floor, my script flew everywhere. There was stunned silence and my eyes welled with tears from the shock of being hit so hard. When I regained my composure the energy between us became electric. It made for good drama. Lindsay Anderson, the director, called for the audition to end. David...
- 2/2/2018
- by Malcolm McDowell
- The Guardian - Film News
Screenwriter of the classic Lindsay Anderson films If…., O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital
The screenwriter David Sherwin, who has died aged 75 from sepsis, wrote three acerbic, funny, trailblazing films for the director Lindsay Anderson, each starring Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis. In If.… (1968), the most influential of these, Mick was a public school revolutionary who opens fire on the quad with his fellow rebels. In the surreal, picaresque O Lucky Man! (1973), he was a coffee salesman who is mistaken for a spy, falls in with a rock band and then a CEO, and eventually emerges from prison to play the lead in O Lucky Man! And in Britannia Hospital (1982), a scathing satire that used the failing establishment of the title as a metaphor for Britain, Mick was a muckraking journalist who is killed and then resurrected as a modern-day Frankenstein’s monster.
Sherwin’s partnership with Anderson was combative...
The screenwriter David Sherwin, who has died aged 75 from sepsis, wrote three acerbic, funny, trailblazing films for the director Lindsay Anderson, each starring Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis. In If.… (1968), the most influential of these, Mick was a public school revolutionary who opens fire on the quad with his fellow rebels. In the surreal, picaresque O Lucky Man! (1973), he was a coffee salesman who is mistaken for a spy, falls in with a rock band and then a CEO, and eventually emerges from prison to play the lead in O Lucky Man! And in Britannia Hospital (1982), a scathing satire that used the failing establishment of the title as a metaphor for Britain, Mick was a muckraking journalist who is killed and then resurrected as a modern-day Frankenstein’s monster.
Sherwin’s partnership with Anderson was combative...
- 2/2/2018
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Christine Noonan, David Wood, Richard Warwick, Rupert Webster, Robert Swann, Hugh Thomas, Arthur Lowe | Written by David Sherwin | Directed by Lindsay Anderson
If…. is a satirical look at the public school system in the late 1960s but while there is a dark sense of humour in place there is also a scathing examination that seems all too real. The system of privilege that is in place and the bullying culture feels not only to be a part of the school system, but society itself. In fact the problems we have with politics to this day can be seen in If…. where these children in a boys only school are being moulded to take the top jobs in society, even as political leaders, being given a warped view on society and a perspective on life that many of the unprivileged (read that as the ‘normal people’) could never...
If…. is a satirical look at the public school system in the late 1960s but while there is a dark sense of humour in place there is also a scathing examination that seems all too real. The system of privilege that is in place and the bullying culture feels not only to be a part of the school system, but society itself. In fact the problems we have with politics to this day can be seen in If…. where these children in a boys only school are being moulded to take the top jobs in society, even as political leaders, being given a warped view on society and a perspective on life that many of the unprivileged (read that as the ‘normal people’) could never...
- 6/7/2014
- by Paul Metcalf
- Nerdly
If…
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Written by David Sherwin
1968, UK
By 1968, America and Europe were completely amerced in the sociological shift between its former Silent Generation traditions and impeding counterculture. Shocking concepts, like anti-establishment thinking, racial integration, drug dependency, and sexual awareness, revolutionized the way society viewed the environment around them. Among these eye-opening revolutions, the medium of New Wave cinema not only explored these alternative live styles, but did so in a way that gave succeeding generations the chance to explore counterculture hands on, through a first-person lens of emotion and deceit. Films like Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde glorifies youthful alienation with violent portrayals never before seen on screen, whereas Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider explores the societal tension between conservative America and the hippie movement through a passive-aggressive lens. Then there is the 1969 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, If.. by Lindsay Anderson, that manages...
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Written by David Sherwin
1968, UK
By 1968, America and Europe were completely amerced in the sociological shift between its former Silent Generation traditions and impeding counterculture. Shocking concepts, like anti-establishment thinking, racial integration, drug dependency, and sexual awareness, revolutionized the way society viewed the environment around them. Among these eye-opening revolutions, the medium of New Wave cinema not only explored these alternative live styles, but did so in a way that gave succeeding generations the chance to explore counterculture hands on, through a first-person lens of emotion and deceit. Films like Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde glorifies youthful alienation with violent portrayals never before seen on screen, whereas Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider explores the societal tension between conservative America and the hippie movement through a passive-aggressive lens. Then there is the 1969 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, If.. by Lindsay Anderson, that manages...
- 6/2/2014
- by Christopher Clemente
- SoundOnSight
If…
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Written by David Sherwin
UK, 1968
If….(1968) directed by Lindsay Anderson and winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1969 premiered one year following the May ’68 protests in France. The screenplay was written by David Sherwin who based the narrative off his experiences at Tonbridge School in Kent. The script made its way to Nicholas Ray who was interested in making the film but felt that a British director should direct it. Anderson was approached and accepted the project. He wanted to make a film similar to Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite (1934) and even screened the film to his screenwriters in the pre-production stage. If… was given an X-rating upon release for nudity and violence. Aside from the more graphic scenes the censor board was probably put off by the ideological message of the film.
Like Vigo’s film, If…. is about authority figures...
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Written by David Sherwin
UK, 1968
If….(1968) directed by Lindsay Anderson and winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1969 premiered one year following the May ’68 protests in France. The screenplay was written by David Sherwin who based the narrative off his experiences at Tonbridge School in Kent. The script made its way to Nicholas Ray who was interested in making the film but felt that a British director should direct it. Anderson was approached and accepted the project. He wanted to make a film similar to Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite (1934) and even screened the film to his screenwriters in the pre-production stage. If… was given an X-rating upon release for nudity and violence. Aside from the more graphic scenes the censor board was probably put off by the ideological message of the film.
Like Vigo’s film, If…. is about authority figures...
- 5/28/2014
- by Cody Lang
- SoundOnSight
Our Smiths-loving Pm has delivered another headscratcher in claiming to like Lindsay Anderson's anti-establishment standard
Like his claim to dig the music of the Smiths, David Cameron's professed admiration for the Lindsay Anderson film If … is either a fantastically canny attempt to deflect attention from his unswervingly patrician background or an act of cultural self-delusion on a massive scale.
I incline towards the latter. If … is without doubt the flag-bearer for the British end of the cinematic counter-culture in the late 60s, with its incendiary, anti-establishment finale of schoolboys machine-gunning their teachers, but it's also a film that could only have been made by products of the public-school system. Screenwriter David Sherwin – he originated the project with another writer, John Howlett, who subsequently backed out – went to Tonbridge School; Anderson himself was a pupil at Cheltenham College, where If … was largely filmed.
If … caught the flavour of the times when it was screened,...
Like his claim to dig the music of the Smiths, David Cameron's professed admiration for the Lindsay Anderson film If … is either a fantastically canny attempt to deflect attention from his unswervingly patrician background or an act of cultural self-delusion on a massive scale.
I incline towards the latter. If … is without doubt the flag-bearer for the British end of the cinematic counter-culture in the late 60s, with its incendiary, anti-establishment finale of schoolboys machine-gunning their teachers, but it's also a film that could only have been made by products of the public-school system. Screenwriter David Sherwin – he originated the project with another writer, John Howlett, who subsequently backed out – went to Tonbridge School; Anderson himself was a pupil at Cheltenham College, where If … was largely filmed.
If … caught the flavour of the times when it was screened,...
- 1/6/2012
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
If.... Directed by: Lindsay Anderson Written by: David Sherwin Starring: Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick, Robert Swann Lindsay Anderson's 1968 film If…. sets a counterculture revolution within the walls of an English public school, creating an allegorical fantasy which reflects the volatile atmosphere of the time. Featuring a pre-Clockwork Orange Malcolm McDowell, comparisons to Kubrick's masterpiece aren't totally misguided. Both films are populated with rebellious youths and flashes of ultra-violence, but Anderson's approach is a less austere look at aggression as a means of change rather than simply a way to curb boredom. The film begins with the start of the school year at an English school for boys. While the youngest kids (do they call them freshman in England?) attempt to navigate the halls of the school and acclimatize to the demands of their surroundings, Mick Travis (McDowell) returns for another year, lugging a giant suitcase and sporting...
- 8/31/2011
- by Jay C.
- FilmJunk
Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
The 5th Quarter: Special Edition (2010)
Synopsis: In February, 2006, young Luke Abbate accepted a ride home from a fellow student following his high-school team practice. In a severe case of irresponsible and reckless teen-age driving, and over the objections of Luke and the other young passengers, the driver lost control of the car at nearly 90 miles-per-hour, spinning off a narrow road and landing in an embankment some seventy feet below. Luke suffered irreparable brain damage, and died in the hospital two days later – just four days before his sixteenth birthday. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Making-of Featurette.
Bereavement (2010)
Synopsis: The horrific account of 6 year old Martin Bristol, abducted from his backyard swing and forced to witness the brutal crimes of a deranged madman. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
Commentary track with director/writer Stevan Mena Behind the scenes featurette Deleted...
The 5th Quarter: Special Edition (2010)
Synopsis: In February, 2006, young Luke Abbate accepted a ride home from a fellow student following his high-school team practice. In a severe case of irresponsible and reckless teen-age driving, and over the objections of Luke and the other young passengers, the driver lost control of the car at nearly 90 miles-per-hour, spinning off a narrow road and landing in an embankment some seventy feet below. Luke suffered irreparable brain damage, and died in the hospital two days later – just four days before his sixteenth birthday. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Making-of Featurette.
Bereavement (2010)
Synopsis: The horrific account of 6 year old Martin Bristol, abducted from his backyard swing and forced to witness the brutal crimes of a deranged madman. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
Commentary track with director/writer Stevan Mena Behind the scenes featurette Deleted...
- 8/29/2011
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Malcolm McDowell has been pretty busy lately, and we’re not talking about his recent work in such TV projects as Entourage, Heroes, CSI and The Mentalist, but rather all the promotion he’s been doing for the upcoming Warner Home Video releases of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange on Blu-ray and the DVD and for Never Apologize, a film of his one-man stage show that pays tribute to his mentor, filmmaker/stage director Lindsay Anderson.
Malcolm McDowell is Mick Travis in Lindsay Anderson's 1969 If...
And speaking of Lindsay Anderson (we call that a segue, in the business), the Criterion Collection will release a Blu-ray version of Lindsay Anderson’s memorable youth-in-revolt drama movie If…, starring Malcolm McDowell as the inimitable Mick Travis, on Aug. 30.
In the film, Mick, with the help of his school buds, challenges authority at every turn and ultimately emerges as a violent savior...
Malcolm McDowell is Mick Travis in Lindsay Anderson's 1969 If...
And speaking of Lindsay Anderson (we call that a segue, in the business), the Criterion Collection will release a Blu-ray version of Lindsay Anderson’s memorable youth-in-revolt drama movie If…, starring Malcolm McDowell as the inimitable Mick Travis, on Aug. 30.
In the film, Mick, with the help of his school buds, challenges authority at every turn and ultimately emerges as a violent savior...
- 5/24/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
It’s so strange, writing this so long after the announcement yesterday. In today’s internet world of instant information, and twenty four second news cycles, yesterday’s August 2011 Criterion Collection new releases may as well have happened last week, or last month. I’m sure that the page views for this post will be markedly smaller than the usual, as I have tried consistently to have the new release post up within minutes of the pages going live on Criterion’s website. I know this all sounds like inside baseball stuff, but it’s on my mind, and darn it, this is my website.
I had a whole, several paragraph long, write up of the August titles, but since I’m finding myself writing this at 10pm on Tuesday evening, I think it’s better if I just scrap that whole thing and start over. I was going on...
I had a whole, several paragraph long, write up of the August titles, but since I’m finding myself writing this at 10pm on Tuesday evening, I think it’s better if I just scrap that whole thing and start over. I was going on...
- 5/18/2011
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.