The Guinea Pig

24-year-old Richard Attenborough was credible as a 14-year-old working-class boy who gets accepted at a posh public school. If I hadn't already seen Attenborough as a ruthless killer in several pictures already, I would have almost believed him a kid. This is a good drama of class and growing pains well worth a look.

Two standard boarding school narratives are unceremoniously jammed into the one film, beginning with working class Attenborough suffering at the hands of snobbish staff and fellow students, and shifting harshly onto the oppressive housemaster’s rediscovery of his humanity. The acting and direction are satisfactory but such uninspired storytelling makes this a piece of little interest.