Being the same age and lifelong fan of Hayley Mills I just had to watch this film when it showed up recently on TV. Sadly, I'm unable to recommend it to anyone above the age of about 16 as this is about the age that all of the adult actors seem to be in this mess. The fault is with the script, by jazz singer George Melly who adapted it from the Kingsley Amis novel. It's so badly written with such dire dialogue that it's almost unwatchable. Jonathan Miller directed and he should have known better than to take this turkey on. The entire script calls for Oliver Reed to attempt to bed Hayley. That's it. Nearly two hours going over the same trite dialogue of teenage sex talk. It becomes a triangle when Noel Harrison also gets involved which doesn't help. The only sane adult performance comes from Sheila Hancock as the increasingly frustrated wife of idiot Labour prospective candidate, John Wells who tries desperately to inject some of that missing comedy ingredient. Even the normally reliable Ronald Lacey is miscast with the strangest accent. Very of it's time but there were far better, although now dated, sex comedies made, although they didn't really have much of that either. The Me Too movement now would be justifiably horrified by all the groping on display here that makes all the male actors look like randy manics. All very embarrassing and one I'm sure Hayley Mills would rather forget.
Review of Take a Girl Like You
