Marlburian

This film is being screened this week by Talking Pictures, my favourite British TV channel because of its old black-and-white films, though "The Nudist Story" is in rich colour.

It all seems very harmless nowadays,with a number of topless women and glimpses of pubic hair on both sexes. But when it was first released back in 1960 I was 15 years old and was curious about what women looked like and around that time I did watch another nudist film. As I remember it, pin-up photos in girlie magazines and the nudist magazine "Health and Efficiency" had photos of both sexes with the groin areas airbrushed out, so I was a little surprised to see the pubic hair, though in most scenes the actors carefully employed a towel so as not to show very much.

I watched the first part of this film, with its predictable plot, endured the synchronised swimming and then fast-forwarded through the camp concert and the rest of the film. Enough said.

I came across "Old Boys" by accident on British TV when channel-flicking, and luckily just as the Continuity voice announced it was a film about a public school (so I had none of the pre-conceptions that other IMDB reviewers had).

For a time I wondered about in which period it was set, thinking that it might be the early 20th century, so it was a surprise when a 1980s Volvo appeared. In fact much of the film sought to recreate the sort of public school and its bizarre rituals that might have existed a century or more ago, and certainly nothing like the one I attended in the early 1960s. We would not have reacted to "The Dam Busters" in the jingoistic way that the boys in the film did. There was a palpable sense of lust when at the end of term my school screened "Some Like it Hot" with Marilyn Monroe in a very tight dress,)

Pauline Etienne was sweet enough as Agnes, but Agnes Laurent as and in "The French Mistress" (the 1960 film about a young woman accidentally appointed as the French teacher at an English public school) was more likely to have aroused emotions among pupils and staff).

A scene near the end reminded me of Tom Courtenay's act of defiance in "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" released in 1960.

The cast and settings were excellent - Lancing College, where filming took place, must be one of the most imposing of Brittain's public schools, with Eton, Marlborough and Winchester all having less conspicuous buildings that do not catch the public eye.

After watching all five episodes of "Showtrial", I was left underwhelmed. None of the characters was attractive - not that I expected them to have the glamorous good looks of actors in American crime dramas, but in that other series filmed in Brighton, "Grace", there are several with some appeal.

From admiring Michael Socha's acting in the first episodes, I became irritated with his constant agitated facial contortions - and in one scene Adheel Akhtar started doing them too, and there they were both of them rolling their heads in anguish at each other.

And I was not convinced by the motivations for Socha's actions - and his reactions to the situation he found himself in.

I was puzzled by the significance of the cycle pedal having to be replaced; the impact that had caused it to become detached would have damaged the crank, making it impossible to fit a new pedal in a way that would not have been obvious even from a cursory examination.

And - dare I say it? - there was an over-representation of ethnic minorities.