The Romantic Age

When Hugh Williams becomes the poetry and arts master at an exclusive girl's school, he brings along his wife, Margot Grahame, and his daughter, Petula Clarke. Top of the heap is Mai Zetterling, a student, who is resentful of Williams at first so, being French(!), she decides to seduce him.

For a 1949 British movie, this is very mature and telling, with a fine performance by Miss Grahame. Nonetheless, the thought struck me, about halfway through, that it was all too conventional, that all the issues were just the sort that one would expect, and I began to wonder what would happen were the girl's school's St. Trinian's or had the movie been directed by Henri-George Clouzot. Did Ronald Searle see this movie and add it to the seething mass of cartoons that inspired the movies? Did Clouzot look at it and snarl "Au diable avec les edutiantes!" and start working on LES DIABOLIQUES? I'm not sure how useful comments like these are for appraising a perfectly decent and watchable British movie that has little to do with either of those works. It's simply that, somehow, I think they are.

Somewhat dated in this post-feminist age, the premise of the story is possibly illegal, based as it is upon the notion that men can be seduced by teen-aged girls! If one looks past these anomalies, however (and that is a big 'ask') there are some memorable performances from the main players, including Petula Clark as the petulant daughter, who, at one point, rather charmingly receives her 'come-uppance' over the knee of the family butler. The film-goer is treated to a delightful, if somewhat tuneless, early example of Miss Clark's adolescent singing skills. It's hard to imagine a scene such as this getting past the censors today!

Movie Girl -

I saw this film on TV in the early 60's as a kid on a station here that aired British films on Friday nights one summer. My older sister and I always loved this film.

In the second review here it says that Petula Clark was the petulant daughter of Arnold who was spanked at the end. No, it was Mai Zetterling, her provocative school friend.

When I saw the opening scene "Littleton School for Girls" I cheered, for I knew it was the beginning of the film. (Sadly, every time the film aired in the 70's the beginning was cut off and the same happened with Mad About Men!). In the early 90's I finally obtained a complete copy.

The adolescent girl who got spanked by the butler was not Petula Clark here, but Mai Zetterling (as Arlette, a spoiled student) who had had an affair with her friend's father. She had earlier made a bet with her friends that she could seduce the new art master who was the only male teacher and was very reserved. Hugh Williams played the part very authentically.

Petula is very good too as his daughter Julie, but Mai as Arlette Tereseau takes the cake! Raymond Lovell was his usual talented self as the butler. (At the end he reaches his limit of endurance when Arlette is repeatedly rude to him).

I well remember the scene where Petula (as Julie the daughter) goes to a nightclub and dances provocatively with Arlette's boyfriend, Henri Sinclair. When Hugh (as Arnold Dixon) as her dad drags her out of there it makes him realize how sordid Arlette and her friends were. I do remember the woman in the bar who laughed and laughed when this happened! I can still hear her laughter ring out. (Julie secretly restores her family, for her father comes home again after that).

Arnold parts in great sadness from Arlette, believing he has done her wrong. She secretly snickers at him. When Julie discovers the malicious plot hatched by her so-called school friend, she turns away in disdain, but keeps the girl's insults about her boring and stuffy father to herself.

One thing that got by the censors was the spanking by the butler at the end, but the key thing was the fact that she did actually seduce Arnold! The students were on a field trip and it was pouring rain. Arlette was "lost" and sought refuge in a deserted hut. Of course she knew he (as the only man on the trip) would be the one to come to her rescue. (They had spent several hours in the hut). Margot Grahame is great as Helen, his suffering wife. They had been a happy family until Arlette entered the picture.

I will always remember how fun it was to watch with my sister. A lot of things got by me at the time, but in viewing the film again it all fits into place.

Though the film had serious elements there are moments of humor as problems are resolved.

The first thing to be said is that nearly all the schoolgirls are played by actresses who are well over 18 years old.Mai Zetterling was 24 years old.It is difficult to know if this was looked on as a romantic comedy.Noways it wouldn't get made because the Hugh Williams character would loose his career and end up in prison for a couple of years.

This movie is billed as a comedy but there are precious few laughs to be had in it. A precocious and spoilt French brat (Mai Zetterling) seduces a rather stupid male teacher (a dull Hugh Williams) for a lark. The teacher is saved by his devoted daughter (a winsome young Petula Clark) but you really want to kick her father downstairs for being such an ass. Zetterling's accent is quite awful and she really is, as scripted, most tiresome, so it would have come as a moment of great satisfaction at the end to audiences of the day when the butler - fed up with her persistent brattiness - takes her over his knee and spanks her pert bottom very soundly with a hairbrush. So after about three other people during the course of the movie (no doubt to the agreement of the contemporary audience) telling her she needs a good spanking, she finally gets what she deserves as the camera fades out.. A happy finale in 1949. Today it wouldn't doubt have resulted in censorship and a prolonged court case.