if....

Released in 1968, directed by Lindsay Anderson with a screenplay by David Sherwin, <i>If....</i> is a story of three non-conformist schoolboys played by Malcolm McDowell, Richard Warwick and David Wood, who plot revenge. Organized as a series of tableaux separated by title cards, IF... spends its first half depicting the harsh rules that these boys live under at their elite public school, and the arbitrary punishments given out by senior boys, headed by the sinister Rowntree (Robert Swann) and the distant school officials. This is all in an environment of bizarre old rituals, Latin refrains, and hardly more intelligible English public school slang (and of course, it wouldn't be a classic story of British public school life without some innu...

At a posh private school there is an hierarchy that sees the housemaster exercise rather arbitrary authority through his three "whips". It's usually the younger pupils they like to terrorise, but at this school there are three older men who attract their attention. There's "Mick" (Malcolm McDowell), "Johnny" (David Wood) and "Wallace" (Richard Warwick) and led by the former, they have little interest in conforming with the expectations of the establishment. Amidst this culture of bully or be bullied, there is also some military training provided and it's this that sparks an idea of a more direct form of rebellion - and when better to implement their plan than at a high ceremonial with an HRH and an army general in attendance. McDowell is at...