An education… The Guinea Pig (1948), BFI Dual Format - out now!

How are you going to mix a boy whose father is a general with a boy whose parents keep a grocer’s shop in Pimlico?

Seventy years on this film is still not without relevance with its debate about the need to reconcile the state school system with public schools. Lord Fleming’s Report for Rab Butler’s Board of Education had proposed that 25% of state school should go to the public sector but in the end rows over funding stopped this from happening. Still, playwright Warren Chetham-Strode wrote of how this might work in practice and it’s a stirring story still infused with the wonderful spirit of post-war optimism: the idea that it was possible to see the other’s point of view. Who then would have imagined this to be such a radical idea now?

Newly restored on this spanking new BFI Blu-ray/DVD dual format release, The Guinea Pig is stirring entertainment from a time when the idea of social mobility wasn’t just an ideal but a practical necessity in a country almost as ravaged by victory as the defeated. In his booklet essay, John Oliver explains that the Boulting Brothers saw cinema as an “educative source” and they followed the socially inclusive Journey Together (1945) with this film, perhaps the first to really address the need for change in British educational system.

Joan Hickson and Bernard Miles

The film is emotionally forceful with just about the only thing stretching credibility being the 24-year old Richard Attenborough as 14-year-old Jack Read, the titular Pig. But you soon believe in his cockney pluck, as the young lad from Pimlico sent by his hardworking parents to Saintbury school, founded by King Henry VIII no less and stuffed to the rafters with alien traditions and manners. Jack’s parents are played by Joan Hickson and Bernard Miles with the latter getting a co-writing credit for fleshing out the working-class characters and dialogue – this ain’t the first film to feature the word arse but it’s up there.

The film opens with Jack being seen off at Waterloo Station by his folks as Mum wonders if he’ll be alright and Dad, knowing full well the risks of the endeavour, looks on with war-weary optimism. As they head back to their tobacconists Jack settles in with his new school mates on the most unmagical of “Hogwarts Expresses”. He meets Tracey (Thomas Bateson) a thoroughly decent sort who is to look after the newcomers and he also shares a carriage with an incredulous Miles Minor (young Anthony Newley) as he tells his new pals which “prep-school” he went to.

Master Newley on the right

I can see how the film would play to general audiences but I wonder how the public-school fraternity would have viewed the unfolding events at stately Saintbury – actually Sherborne school in Dorset. In fairness the film gives full credit to both sides of the argument for inclusion but is Jack a little bit more polite and resilient than more of us state school lads would have been and are the conservative masters and pupils also just a little too understanding?

On arrival, Jack meets another thoroughly decent chap in the form of Nigel Lorraine (Robert Flemyng who was born in Liverpool) a former army officer who lost a leg in the war and is giving the boys the benefit of his experience. He’s a hero and the film’s nod to his good nature and his service is heart warming in itself. As he guides Jack to his House, you know he will be key to Jack’s success or failure.

Thomas Bateson, Dickie, Cecil Trouncer and Edith Sharpe

Jack meets his House Master, Mr Hartley (Cecil Trouncer) who is altogether less welcoming than his wife (Edith Sharpe) but the two are almost stock public school characters; she the mother most of them literally never have and he the stern voice of unyielding tradition; a grumpier version of Mr Chips yet we know what happened to him…

Jack soon encounters lots of attitudes and traditions that don’t agree with him; he’s picked out by one of the prefects to be his fag before he’s even finished his tea, whilst the others rag him about his accent and he’s teased at the traditional welcoming ceremony in which the new boys have to bow three times to the statue of founder Henry whilst getting their rears kicked. But Jack won’t have it and fights back… reminding me of my response to a similar situation in the Merton College "Freshers’ Blind".

Anthony Nicholls and Robert Flemyng enjoy a smoke watching the cricket

Jack’s resilient but even he tries to escape only to be stopped at the school wall by Mr Lorraine who was on a moonlit walk with the Hartley’s lovely daughter Lynne played by the always excellent Sheila Sim who had married Attenborough in 1945. Sheila too was from Liverpool, starting life off overlooking Calderstones’s Park not far from where John and Paul would live.

Sim and Edith Sharpe add a lot of light to what would otherwise be an all-male environment and one in which Jack falls foul of the strictures regarding talking to women. He wolf whistles the neighbouring girl’s school and gets beaten for just walking and talking to Bessie from the bookstore (Maureen Glynne).

 Edith Sharpe and Our Sheila

The film’s trajectory isn’t entirely predictable and gradually the emphasis shifts from Jack’s struggle to fit in and to succeed onto the reactions of the school board and old Mr Hartley: will they accept any success for the guinea pig and will this influence their approach to inclusion going forward. It all comes down to a choice between investing in the school’s already splendid infrastructure and scholarships that may help make more opportunities for Jack and others.

It is surprisingly moving and well played by the Roy Boulting and his sparkling cast.  It may just have been the flicker of long dead optimism – the changes suggested were hardly revolutionary after all - or the genuine hope that we can work across backgrounds, but I suggest you have your hankie ready.

Happiest days of our lives?

The restoration from the BFI looks splendid and it comes with a chunky booklet with John Oliver’s excellent essay Bridging the divide: class and consensus in The Guinea Pig, and another on the creative curiosity of the Boulting Brothers from Corinna Reicher. There’s also a host of quirky archive extras including short films about schooling from silents to the sixties as well as slices of life in ration-book Britain: I love the way the BFI fill out these releases with so much special content.

The film is available on dual format direct from the BFI online or from their soon to re-open shop. It’s a cracker!