P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang

Postwar England, the dawn of the "atomic age". Yet, the worries of a young schoolboy yearning to experience his first "kiss" cannot be derailed by something as inconsequential as THE BOMB. This was a delightful if not educational look at young love from the vantage point of an adolescent male and his world of the

1940's. Free of political correctness and preachy messages, this film exposes the viewer to the world that only the mind (and

hormones) of a young teenager can create. Wonderful subplots

maintain character interest ala "Gregory's Girl", and plenty

of well blocked shots help keep up the imagery of this era. This is a very good story for anyone, young or old, who has

ever been in love, or ever wanted to be. Does he ever get his wish? Watch it and see.

1948. 14-year-old Alan Duckworth dreams of playing cricket for England and of kissing Ann Lawton, a classmate. She is oblivious to his infatuation and only has eyes for Geoffrey, the class heartthrob. It seems Alan's dreams will forever be dashed but then fate intervenes.

A sweet, funny coming-of-age film. Solid, entertaining plot and engaging characters and heaps of nostalgia make for a great movie. You can't watch this without thinking of your own school days and relating to Alan's priorities and predicament.

It's not just about the kids: the adults' sub-plots are very entertaining too. These also bring up some interesting themes.

Solid performances from the (largely) young cast.

I was at school in the late sixties and early seventies and this film is very much how my school was. The school play where the leading actors kiss, that happened at my school. A crazy gang of lads, my school again only when we went on a cross country run we would have a smoke! 'Getting the whack', some one at my school broke in through a sky light and broke the canes! after that they were kept in a safe!!! And as for certain nocternal activities! what can I say.... The film actually came out in 1982, I remember that as it was when I bought my house and the film was showing at the same time. If you like British films and films about school, growing up and period pieces, then this is for you. Another film very much like it, 'SWALK', came out a few years before and I for one would like to see that again, also 'Kes' is in the genre. Highly recommended. (But trust me, 1982 is when it came out)

Through their collaborations on TV in the 1960s and 1970s, writer Jack Rosenthal and director Michael Apted had crafted a number of popular and acute studies of human character through plays, sitcoms and even episodes of Coronation Street. Little wonder then that by the 1980s when the new fourth British television channel was being planned, that these two talents should be earmarked for the first project of its film wing.

Rosenthal returns to the landscape of his own youth for this story, a middle-class British school of the 1940s. In simple terms, it is the story of a fourteen-year-old boy, Alan Duckworth, and his two great loves: a very public passion for cricket and a more private, unrequited adoration of one of his female classmates, Ann Lawton. In the transitional stage between childhood and adulthood, he is able to maintain a friendship with the school groundsman, Tommy, and discuss intelligent topics with him, yet is still something of an unruly pupil, larking about with his 'gang' friends at inappropriate moments. It is the club greeting of this gang, an obligatory exchange of the password "P'Tang, Yang, Kipperbang - uhh!" that gives this film its title, one to rank among the most bizarre in the history of cinema along with Laughing Gravy (1930) and The Film That Rises To The Surface Of Clarified Butter (1968).

Duckworth's growing infatuation with Ann seems doomed to progress no further than longing gazes across the classroom until an unexpected turn of events propels him along a course whereupon it seems inevitable that he must declare his feelings to her. However, as this is a course of action he is now being pressured into, he begins to wonder if asking God to bring him this opportunity was such a good idea after all.

But this is a Jack Rosenthal script, so although this tale of adolescence is told in a quite charming way, there is so much more going on in the film and it explores love and sex as driving forces for most of the other characters in the film also, and how it differs for each. Tommy, recently back from serving overseas during the war, is now working the land at the school and has also been 'working' Miss Land, Alan's teacher. Miss Land, rather prim and proper in class, has quite an appetite for men, and when all the young eligible ones were away fighting it is revealed that she took on older men for lovers rather than remain celibate. The boys in Alan's class have reached an age where they want sex but haven't achieved it, and thus even a claim to have groped a girl's chest over her clothes affords a boy some superior status over his peers. But even the girls seem rather obsessed too, having a poll to see which is the most desirable boy in the class. The juxtaposition of these events help to illustrate that Alan is truly motivated more by love than mere lust. And just as they also demonstrate a depth to Alan, the events also show this unexpected depth of Alan's character to Ann Lawton, who had never previously given him a second thought.

There's a top-notch cast at work here, many of them just starting out on what have turned out to be successful screen careers. Watch out for one-time Eurovision entrant Frances Ruffelle as the girl who offers out hugs for all the boys in the class.

The film is not full of action or incident and although it explores some adult themes, it is subtle rather than explicit. As a snapshot of British life just after the war, I am not sure how much this will appeal to audiences of different ages or from different cultures but as its themes are so fundamentally human, the underlying story should surely be appreciated universally. And in its approach to exploring those themes, the film is practically faultless.

An enjoyable movie, without a doubt, and very evocative of both its era and that very particular stage in any boy's 'rites of passage'. But I have to say that having read the very positive comments here, I was a bit disappointed. The period was captured, but the plot was desperately thin. The whole thing revolves around the most egregious bit of miscasting in the history of school plays. The idea that quack quack would ever be chosen to play not only one of only three star turns, but a philanderer, is risible. And without that, nada. The sub-plots bore no relation that I could see to the main plot - all of them could be removed in their entirety without in any way affecting the main story - which surely suggests a fundamental flaw. When all your sub-plots look like padding, you know a central idea is being stretched beyond its limits. Nevertheless, it's a benign movie with its heart in the right place, there are some fine performances, and you just get the feeling that everyone involved felt deflated at the final 'cut!' That good feeling permeates the film. And that has to count for something. A flawed really quite good movie. 7 out of 10.