IT'S GREAT TO BE YOUNG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 913, 8 February 1957, Page 14

IT'S GREAT TO BE YOUNG

(Associated British-Warners) G Cert. DON’T know what educationistsespecially co-educationists -- would say about this picture (if indeed they could be persuaded that it was worth & pronouncement), but if I were viewing it in loco magistri, I’d be inclined to regard it as subversive. A film which shows secondary schooboys and schoolgirls flouting or circumventing school rules (and even staging a successful sitdown strike) could be regarded as prejudicial to good order and scholastic discipline, however respectable the intentions of the offenders-and as every schoolmaster knows, good order is hard enough to maintain anyway. It’s Great to be Young is, however, a comedy and teenagers will probably find it more a safety valve for their enthusiasms than an incentive to direct action. All the same, I was a little disappointed that a good initial idea had not received better treatment. g The trouble at Angel Hill Grammar School begins when a new headmaster (Cecil Parker) decides tiat too much school time is being wested in orchestral

practices and orders them cut down to a point which threatens the school’s chances in the inter-school orchestral festival. This provokes near-rebellion and when, as a result of further arguments about new instruments, the popular Mr. Dingle (John Mills) resigns, the children stage a near-riot and strike to force his

reinstatement. With a little more restraint in its treatment It’s Great to be Young’ might have been quite a good film. The value of music in school life, and as a mode of self-expression, is worth making a film about, but this one

has been spoiled by quite needless exaggerations of behaviour (and for that matter of musical accomplishment). But it has some pleasant Passages and I enjoyed seeing John Mills out of naval uniform-though in the end it was Cecil Parker who won all of my sympathy.