1950 Directed by Frank Launder
Nutbourne College, an old established, all-boys, boarding school is told that another school is to be billeted with due to wartime restrictions. The shock is that it's an all-girls school that has been sent. The two head teachers are soon battling for the upper hand with each other and the Ministry. But a crisis (or two) forces them to work together.
Alastair Sim Margaret Rutherford John Turnbull Richard Wattis John Bentley Guy Middleton Percy Walsh Arthur Howard Edward Rigby Harold Goodwin Gladys Henson Muriel Aked Joyce Grenfell Bernadette O'Farrell Myrette Morven Patience Rentoul Lilian Stanley Kenneth Downey Laurence Naismith Stringer Davis Stanley Lemin Olwen Brookes Alan Broadhurst Vivien Wood Nan Munro Russell Waters George Benson Angela Glynne Patricia Owens Show All…
The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women
As a result of a Whitehall cock-up an all-girl's school is mistakenly billeted with an all-boy's school. Matters are further complicated with the simultaneous arrival of a group of the girl's parents and the governors of a school with whom the headmaster is attempting to secure a position.
This might look like a dry run for Launder and Gilliat's St. Trinians movies which, while they were more successful and of course ribald, fall short of this masterpiece of British comedy.
It goes without saying that the cast is is superb and Margaret Rutherford as the Headmistress of the interlopers is great, but even her performance pales in comparison…
A nice little comedy of errors elevated above forgettable by the presence of Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford. Sim plays a pompous, misogynistic boys’ school headmaster who suddenly has to accommodate Margaret Rutherford’s all-girls school due to an administrative error. Uh oh and guess what? Margaret Rutherford has an important parent tour at the same time Alastair has a tour with the board of the prestigious school he’s applied to. As you can imagine, hijinks ensue. Richard Wattis, Guy Middleton, Arthur Howard and Edward Rigby are quite good, Joyce Grenfell is hilarious, she should have been in more. John Bentley is not good here.
This is the kind of thing that 35 years later would be packed to the gills with boobs and weed and grindage but as it is, this is fun for all ages provided you are easily charmed by this mode of fillum. Why, old boy, I must say I am, yes, quite.
This English classic couldn't miss with Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford in the same movie (he's the head of a boys' school who has to accomodate her school and staff during wartime alongside their own). There's also the delightfully dotty Joyce Grenfell (Miss Gossage, 'call me sausage').
The Happiest Days ... falls back on slapstick farce and, rather like the St Trinian's series, sends up the whole boarding school culture with glee. It all gets incredibly silly and, as such, is a genuinely hilarious and harmless hour and a half of entertainment.
Oh what I would not give to have watched this in a crowded theater. Comedy more than any other form (horror probably comes the closest) needs a crowd to be shown to its best advantage. Drama does not suffer from a solitary viewing. Espionage thrillers are probably improved by not hearing other patrons ask their companions why they killed that guy (or by being able to ask your companion why they killed that guy). It’s probably easier to be brought to tears alone than otherwise, regardless of how crass the manipulation. But how funny does something have to be to make you laugh out loud by yourself? Pretty damn funny. This made me laugh out loud by myself, several times. It is exquisitely executed and the contest between Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford is a true clash of titans.
Alastair Sim as 'Wetherby Pond', Margaret Rutherford as 'Muriel Whitchurch', and jokes about the Rank gong – obviously I loved this!
There are a few dated, unsavoury jokes, but always a wonderful buoyancy to the farce and cracking performances. It's also markedly better than St Trinians, which its obviously the blueprint for.
I know that the pairing of Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford will be enough to win absolutely anybody over and, to the surprise of nobody, The Happiest Days of Your Life makes the most of their brilliance both separately and together.
The actual star of the show here is Joyce Grenfell, bringing her sublime comic timing and charming daftness to every scene she's allowed in a crowded cast that adds to the general chaos of Frank Launder's school mix-up farce.
The humour, both physical and verbal, is absolutely top notch and right up there with some of the best films in what was a golden era for British comedy. Bloody hilarious, whizzes by in just 82 minutes, and is the sort of thing that almost makes me proud to be from this country. But not quite.
Based on the play of the same name by John Dighton, this British comedy is about a girls’ school which is billeted to a boys’ school by mistake and trouble erupts.
In the middle of World War II, the all-girls St. Swithins school is exiled from London to dodge the Blitz. Due to an organisational mistake, the female students and staff are repositioned to the Nutborne Boys School, whose headmaster, Wetherby Pond (Alastair Sim), is shocked.
He and St. Swithins headmistress Muriel Whitchurch (Margaret Rutherford) approve to keep their mixed-sex estate confidential to evade worrying the parents, but they struggle to two-time visiting examiners.
Alastair Sim gives one of the best performances of his career playing the role of the…
It's always odd to go back to a film I'd known so well in the past but hadn't seen in at least ten or fifteen years, to discover if it still stands up. There are far greater films I've watched in the intervening years that I can now barely remember the outline of, but with such a film as this can still remember every single scene and line. Still although not quite as good as I remember (nostalgia is never what it used to be) the film is still immense, innocent fun, especially as it's the one and only chance to see those two greats of British comedy Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford lock horns, they're so delectable together that…
A brisk march through stock British institutions and expected scenarios played with the expected gusto by Rutherford and Sim. The romantic subplot - fortunately - is barely developed leaving the plot to be driven almost entirely as gentle farce.
A film for anyone who's ever wondered what it would be like if Miss Marple and Ebeneezer Scrooge were forced to run a private school together. The Happiest Days of Your Life is a so-so comedy elevated by great performances and some real zingy dialogue.
Director Frank Laudner, often with his writing partner Sidney Gilliat, is all over some of the best British cinema of the 30’s and 40’s (not least as writers of one of my all-time favourite films: The Lady Vanishes).
Here’s another breezy and charming comedy with a favourite of theirs (and everyone’s), Alistair Simm at the centre of it.
It seems like a precursor to the St. Trinians films that he made with much of the same cast, especially as St. Trinians creator Ronald Searl’s artwork appears in the credit sequence.
Playing ‘British Character Actor Bingo’, this time I’m going with the brilliant Richard Wattis.
