Some People

I first saw this film when I was 14 years old and have loved it ever since. It captured the atmosphere of the early 1960s perfectly and is a true snapshot of the times.

I can remember sitting in the cinema surrounded by other teenagers all dressed in black leather jackets, tight blue jeans and winkle-pickers. I can also remember seeing countless trails of blue smoke rising to the ceiling, as everyone smoked in the cinema in those days.

The music is also very typical of the time, and I am lucky enough to have the 45rpm E.P. of the soundtrack by Valerie Mountain and the Eagles.

I would love to see the film again, but I have only seen it on television once, and that was probably about 20 years ago. It was filmed in Bristol and I know that the city has changed considerably since then, so it is now of interest not only for the content and story, but also for the location in which it was shot.

I think this film is priceless and I cannot understand why it seems to have disappeared altogether. Perhaps it will be shown on TV again sometime?

I loved that this movie was made in my home town of Bristol. Places featured included Clifton, Filton, Patchway, Broadmead, City Center, The Downs, Totterdown, The Portway, The old Bus station, Soundwell Swimming Baths, Southville Baths covered over for Roller skating, The docks and The Clifton Suspension Bridge. Set in the early 60s it perfectly captured the atmosphere of the time. The story itself was a little light and seemed like a very long advert for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. The acting was all good and although Kenneth Moore wasn't in it as much as you would expect from a star of his caliber, he still stole every scene he was in. Now on DVD it is well worth a watch.

This was the film in which Clive Donner marked himself as a director to watch having worked his way up from second features, and fulfilled the promise he showed here with 'The Caretaker' and the forgotten classic 'Nothing But the Best'; before like most British directors of his era coming a cropper with Hollywood and ending his days in television.

Shot by John Wilcox in gleaming Eastmancolor on location in Bristol (although only Ray Brooks seems to be making a serious attempt at the local accent), it wears it's message lightly but was dismissed eleven years later by the Allans as "too firmly set in 1962 for much contemporary interest". But like Anneke Wills' jeans it looks cool again (while the driving of our young trio of delinquents' benefactor The Duke of Edinburgh has only recently caused a brush with the law of his own).

Not many films used to be shot in Bristol, England in the 1960s. But Some People was shot entirely in and around the old city going out of its way to show the main characters in the very spots they would actually have been hanging about in real life as aimless teenagers. I know for certain because my parents were courting teens at that very time in that very place. I showed them the film recently (yes they're still a couple 54 years later) and the locations were very accurate to life as they knew it. My father actually worked in the Aircraft factory featured. The dance club in the film was the top spot for young Bristolians to cut a rug in 1962, a favorite place for them and all of their young friends (the front door manned by no less than Dave Prowse (not in the film unfortunately), the actor who made good as Darth Vader in a slightly better known film.) Bristol has changed but not so much that anyone familiar with it wouldn't know most of the locales.

Not much of a film really critically speaking, but well cast, well meaning, and well...it's not half bad. If you know the place it's a precious document though of a time and place which can never be duplicated.

So, this movie DOES actually exist after all! I've tried searching the title for years in various film guides to no avail. For some strange reason, "Some People" showed up at our local theater in Dover, NH sometime in either 1964 or 1965 and I saw it with a bunch of my 12 year old buddies. All I can remember is a scene where a teenager is sitting in a bathtub with a pair of jeans on to get that "form fit" we were all looking for back then, and the lyrics to the theme song "some people think that kids today have gone astray, but they don't know the kids the way I do," have stayed in my head for 44 years. I'm a once and future "British Invasion" junkie and was probably hoping that the movie would feature some of my current favorites such as the Searchers, Hollies, Honeycombs, Manfred Mann, Animals, etc., but I guess it was more along the lines of "That'll Be The Day," which covers the era immediately preceding "beat" music hitting it big in the States. Anyhoodle, I would like to thank the IMDb crew and all who commented on this forgotten classic (?) for restoring faith in my own sanity. If anyone out there would like to discuss music from this era, I'm more than ready to comply.