“It’s life, lad … it might make you laugh at your age … but one day it’ll make you bloody cry.”

The movie gods are really smiling on me this week. This is yet another movie I watched purely for Hayley Mills but got so much more out of (has to be mentioned though – cute bottom! hehe I think with that shot my “re-discovery” of her cuteness is complete). This is a true Northern classic of Sixties British cinema, made infinitely more delightful by the fact it’s scored by none other than Paul McCartney (I’m already watching an LP of the soundtrack on eBay, lol). Can’t believe that little tidbit passed me by all these years.

From the title I fully expected this to be a kind of “problem picture” about unwanted pregnancy, but it’s nowhere near that obvious. It gets a little melodramatic at times, such as a scene where Mills is distraught about still being a virgin after 10 weeks of marriage – but by the end I was practically rolling around on the floor, those housewives staring up at the happy couples’ window, lol.

The housing scene is hilarious (“If you haven’t any children, you need a doctor’s note.” “Then we’ll get one!” “But you’re not ill are you?” “No!” “But to get a house you have to be!” “But you can’t get anywhere without forms ... you shouldn’t even be seeing me! This is most irregular.”) and John Mills (putting ketchup on scrambled eggs, lol – “You look like you’re mixing concrete. I told you – there’s too much.” “There’s not enough.”) is absolutely fantastic. That last line is so classically drab of the genre but it works perfectly. Just a beautiful picture of life that’s real as it gets.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 at 7:22 pm in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews and tagged as British New Wave, cuties, kitchen sink, Sixties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.