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16 out of 16 people found the following review useful: 80 mins of absolute joy, 14 April 1999 Author: Hugh Peacock (h.peacock@btinternet.com) from London, England
From the golden period of British films, this has my vote for one of the funniest of all time. Screened yesterday at my Film Society to a rapturous audience, I was astonished at how well the comedy has lasted (made in 1950!). It is really down to the expert timing and inimitable playing from two of the finest actors Britain has produced: Margaret Rutherford and Alastair Sim. Adapted from a play by John Dighton, this farce is briskly handled by director Frank Launder. The plot is simple: A ministry mistake billets a girls' school on a boys' school. I will always laugh when I think of this film.
9 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Be prepared to laugh out loud, 28 November 2000 Author: aromatic-2 (aromatic@ivillage.com) from New York, NY
One of the flat-out drollest movies of all-time. Sim and Rutherford are at their best matching wits over the predicament of an all-boys and all-girls school sharing the same quarters. Slapstick has never been this sophisticated.
9 out of 9 people found the following review useful: This classic British comedy leaves a warm, cheerful glow., 19 September 2000 Author: David Matthews (dmatthews03@hotmail.com)
No point in giving too many plot details here, just take the basic premise of an all girls school being assigned to an all boys school by mistake, add that on the same day the girl's headmistress has to show a group of visiting parents around while the boy's headmaster (who is due to be promoted to a senior position at a new college) has to show his new employers around and I think you'll get the picture.This fifty year old comedy wears well. The pace is frantic, like a French farce with doors opening and closing and much dashing along corridors with split second timing as the two groups try to avoid each other. Magaret Rutherford and Alistair Sim ham it up superbly and there are many familiar faces in the supporting cast, all of whom react with great professionalism. At ninety minutes the film doesn't out stay it's welcome, and there's even time for a little romance that doesn't slow up the action one bit. Incidentally I had forgotten how sexy the gym outfits of English schoolgirls of that period were. It bought back memories.
7 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Great place to start for British wit, 8 February 2006 Author: filoshagrat from Scotland
This film, without doubt, is the clearest example of the British humour the Germans can't understand. One-liners run rampant in a film spawning one of the greatest series of films in British cinema history (St.Trinians). The story of bureaucratic incompetence amid post-war trials enables Frank Launder to direct maximum talent from all the cast. It's probably the only film in which Margaret Rutherford meets her match, in Alastair Sim, for forceful characterisation (she still wins though). Joyce Grenfell (bless her) and Richard Wattis both deserve mentions in Dighton's masterpiece of English etiquette and stiff upper lip under pressure.No Rutherford/Sim/Grenfell fan would be without this in their collection. Absolutely brilliant. Why 9/10? Only 83mins long.
7 out of 7 people found the following review useful: funny school-based comedy, 7 December 2003 Author: didi-5 from United Kingdom
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.
6 out of 6 people found the following review useful: The magnificently silly Britain of the 1950s, 16 March 2002 Author: intercostalclavicle from Edinburgh, Scotland
The Happiest Days of Your Life showcases some of Britain's greatest comedy talents of its time in a traditionally farcical and upper-class-twit like fashion. Generally it is a whistle-stop tour of stuffy English behaviour with the girls-only school providing a great setting for the dotty goings-on. Margaret Rutherford, Alastair Sim and - most especially! - Joyce Grenfell are all fantastic, giving us a lot of laughs as they express their utter horror at what they are having to deal with. As the film moves on, things get sillier and sillier with the tour around the school for the parents being a suitably crackers high point.At this point I will give special mention, again, to Joyce Grenfell and her wonderful character Miss Gossage. She is so extraordinarily innocent, silly, apologetic and ineffectual that she seems to steal the whole film. She provides the greatest laugh of the film when she flirts with a male teacher ("Call me sausage!").Whilst some of the film is slow or dated, and not always very involving, it still maintains most of its sparkle and barely pauses for romance. Good for a silly, harmless giggle.7/10
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Margaret Rutherford at her Best!, 31 March 2001 Author: Mark Whiston from Eastbourne, England
After a long run in the West End this charming film re-cast Margaret Rutherford as the Headmistress 'Miss Whitchurch' in this financially successful adaptation made in 1950.All interior shots took place at Riverside studios in Hammersmith, London. The exterior scenes were filmed on location at a public girl's school near Liss in Hampshire. During the 12 - week shoot both Margaret Rutherford and Joyce Grenfell were staying in a hotel nearby and would often visit the school during the evenings where they would happily enjoy the company of the real school mistresses.Although the film's script contains only two original lines from the original play the leads and supporting actors are in fine form and you can only feel sympathetic for their predicament especially in the final scenes.
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: What a script - & what a cast!, 11 June 2001 Author: Learner5 (chapmanpaul0@talk21.com)
The play is cleverly constructed - begin with the porter, Rainbow - & let the audience see the background unfold through his eyes. The film follows the play with great faithfulness, working, no doubt, on the simple premise that it couldn't be bettered. Now throw in a host of superb character actors - & the result is a resounding triumph.A definite must-see.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: St Swithin's versus Nutbourne!., 17 August 2008 Author: JohnRouseMerriottChard from United Kingdom
A bumbling error at the Ministry Of Education results in Nutbourne Boys School having to share with St Swithin's School For Girls. This bemuses the respective head teachers of each school and leads to all manner of chaotic goings on, however the two are forced to come to an uneasy alliance in the hope of averting major trouble.The Happiest Days Of Your Life is based on the John Dighton play from 1948, with Dighton writing the part of Headmistress Whitchurch specifically for Margaret Rutherford. Replacing George Howe from the play in the role of Headmaster Pond, is Alastair Sim, and here in lies the crowning glory of this filmic adaptation, Sim & Rutherford are perfectly wonderful, bouncing off each other to keep what is basically a one joke movie, highly entertaining. Directed by the gifted Frank Launder, and produced by the equally adroit Sidney Gilliat, The Happiest Days Of Your Life is a quintessentially British movie, obviously a precursor to the St Trinians franchise, the film entertains the children with it's high jinks clash of the sexes heart, whilst tickling the watching adults with its very saucy undercurrent. Thankfully the chaotic ending cements all that has gone before it to leave this particular viewer with a grin as wide as Nutbourne Rail Station, great fun 8/10.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: My all-time favourite comedy film, 13 June 2007 Author: odde63 from United Kingdom
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This film was made thirteen years before I was born but I still think it is the wittiest, dottiest, most harmless piece of fun ever made. It simply could not go wrong with the cast of superb British character actors it boasts.Where to start? Alastair Sim-peerless; Margaret Rutherford-ditto;the wonderfully alkward, innocent Gossage, played to perfection by the imperious Joyce Grenfell. The caddish Victor Hyde-Brown (a Guy Middleton special) and the rest of the staff sum up post-war middle-class England to a tee.The humour is sometimes obvious, but it is of that special "Ealing" variety and is never offensive.I have watched this film more times than I care to remember and still laugh like a drain at the antics every time. The storming of the dorms occupied by the girls school, the magnificently-planned but ultimately doomed twin tours of the school and the chaotic ending involving the arrival of a third school to add to the anarchy, are priceless.It's an old cliché I know, but they really do not make them like that anymore. How I wish they did. If you haven't seen it, please do, you won't be disappointed.
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