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[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/if_5154.jpg]]
->''"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."''
-->-- '''Mick Travis'''
''if....'' is a 1968 film written by David Sherwin, directed by Lindsay Anderson, and starring Creator/MalcolmMcDowell, in his film debut, as Mick Travis.
The film is set at a BoardingSchool, and is best known for the climactic sequence in which conflicts between the students and the school authorities escalate into outright warfare with automatic weapons.
Sherwin, Anderson, and [=McDowell=] collaborated on two further films, ''O Lucky Man!'' and ''Britannia Hospital''; both also feature [=McDowell=] as a character named Mick Travis, but they do not constitute a series except in BroadStrokes.
The title is probably a sarcastic reference to Creator/RudyardKipling's [[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- famous poem]]. If you are searching for the equally subversive and seditious left-wing political cartoon series by Steve Bell, go '''[[ComicStrip/{{If}} here]]'''. Not to be confused with the video game ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'', which has a similarly-styled logo and also has a high school.
----
!!This film provides examples of:
* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: The Upper Sixth [[note]]"Year 13" in the new money[[/note]] "Whips" (prefects), lead by Rowntree, definitely rule the school and have a small army of younger pupils (the "Scum") who do fagging duties for them - making tea, running errands, warming toilet seats, shaving them....[[DepravedBisexual and probably other stuff too.]]
* AdultsAreUseless: The teachers, including the Head-Master, seem fairly oblivious to the goings-on at College House.
* AxesAtSchool: The film’s surreal final scenes show Travis and his comrades taking up arms and attacking fellow pupils, teachers and parents during Founder's Day.
* AntiHero: Travis, at most times NominalHero would fit too.
* AudienceSurrogate: Jute. Audiences unfamiliar with the particulars and traditions of British boarding school life are able to follow his bewilderment and subsequent crash-course in protocol as he starts the term at College House.
** MetaGuy
** FishOutOfWater: Both Jute and any viewers who may find the boarding school environment of the late 60's totally alien.
* {{Bishounen}}: Bobby Philips, with his feminine features and wavy, flaxen hair provides a ''textbook'' example.
--> '''Philips? That little blond - Mwah!'''
* BloodOath: Travis, Wallace and Yardley make a blood oath.
* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors
** OneGenderSchool: All boys.
* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler:At the end of the film, in a surreal sequence, Travis' group discovers a cache of automatic weapons, and revolt against the establishment. On Founders' Day, when parents are visiting the school, they start a fire under the hall, smoke out the parents, staff and boys, and open fire on them from a rooftop. Led by the visiting General who was giving the speech, the staff and boys break open the Combined Cadet Force armoury and fire back. The film ends just as "The Girl" shoots the Head-Master through the head - it is never revealed what happened following the uprising.]]
* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:The Girl shoots the Head Master in the head]].
* BourgeoisBohemian: Travis (and friends) are this in the making, with their strong counter-culture sympathies despite having clearly upper-middle class social backgrounds.
* BreakTheHaughty: Travis and friends regularly take the snotty Denson and power-hungry Stephans down a peg or two, even though both can technically order them about in their role as Whips (prefects).
--> '''Denson''': (showing the badge on his lapel) I serve the nation. You haven't any idea what it means, have you? To you it's one bloody joke.
--> '''Travis''': You mean that bit of wool on your tit?
* BrilliantButLazy: Travis.
* BritishStuffiness: The teachers and the prefects, and (most likely) parents.
* BullyHunter: Travis and Johnny Knightly, who never take any shit from the prefects.
* ButtMonkey: Biles
--> ''Pass it on - "Biles, why are you a freak?''
* CoolGuns: the Combined Cadet Force is equipped with Lee-Enfield rifles and Vickers machine guns; these are used to deadly effect.
* CoolTeacher: At first, the History master, with his eccentricities, and exhortations to his class to debate with him, looks as if he is one of these. His reaction to Travis demonstrating he actually knows the source of a quotation says otherwise.
* CorporalPunishment: There's a lengthy scene in which Mick and his friends are caned by the prefects. Afterwards they have to shake the prefect by the hand and thank him — a common tradition in public schools, apparently.
* CovertPervert: The apparently meek Mrs. Kemp enjoys walking naked through the boys' dormitory and washroom while fondling soap, towels and other objects the boys have carelessly strewn about.
** TheRuleOfFirstAdopters: The above scene features the first instance of a full-frontal female nude passed by the British Board of Film Classification.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: In another highly controversial scene, Mr. Kemp sings a hymn as his wife accompanies him on the recorder; the matron, overhearing, is driven to near orgasm.
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Some scenes are in black and white. Many people have tried to find the "pattern"; some think that the black and white scenes are fantasy or dreams, but others think that the colour scenes are. Malcolm [=McDowell=] claims that some of the scenes would have taken too long to light properly if they had been shot in colour, and then other scenes were shot black and white to add "texture". But another view is that the filmmakers ran into money troubles halfway through shooting and so had to shoot the rest of the scenes in black and white.
* TheDragon: Stephans acts as one to the Whips, which results in a lot of resentment from Travis and co.
--> ''One night we're gonna massacre you, Stephans - I'll do ya for free''
* FalseReassurance: To placate the understandably nervous head-master of the actual school used for the film's location, the filmmakers sent the school a fake script omitting the students turning on the staff and parents with guns.
* TheFatalist / NietzscheWannabe / PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery: Travis overlaps all three...
--> '''The whole world will end very soon - black, brittle bodies peeling into ash...'''
--> '''There's no such thing as a wrong war. Violence and revolution are the only pure acts.'''
--> '''One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.'''
* {{Flynning}}: Done deliberately when Travis, Cox and Knightley get into a sword fight more or less for the hell of it and tear around the school flynning for all they're worth.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: As the pupils return at the start of a new term, Travis arrives with a suitcase on his shoulder, wearing a black hat, with a black scarf across his face to hide his moustache. Stephans comments, "God, it's Guy Fawkes back again", hinting at the conclusion of the film....
* FourEyesZeroSoul: The cold-mannered prefect Denson wears glasses.
* GainaxEnding[=/=]NoEnding: [[spoiler:During the Founders' Day commencement speech, a fire starts and all the attendees run out. Mick and the Crusaders set off explosions and fire into the crowd. This changes when ''the crowd'' including a priest, a general and ''a knight'' get rifles and start firing back at them. The Headmaster calls for a ceasefire, but The Girl shoots him in the head. The film ends on the two groups firing at one another, with the ground mysteriously cleared of bodies.]]
* GuileHero: Travis
* HandCannon: [[spoiler: The Girl uses one to shoot The Headmaster.]]
* IDontPayYouToThink: The younger pupils or "scum" who wait on the older "whips" are certainly not expected to think for themselves.
--> '''Rowntree:''' What are these?
--> '''Philips:''' Muffins.
--> '''Rowntree:''' I thought I specifically ordered crumpets.
--> '''Philips:''' I couldn't get any, I thought these would do.
--> '''Rowntree:''' It's not up to you to think.
* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: [[spoiler: During the ending, the Crusaders and the Crowd tend to miss. Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] due to the surrealism of the scene (even people who fall over get back up) and that both groups are mostly inexperienced with these types of weapons.]]
* InsistentTerminology: Brunning drills Jute for a test.
--> '''Jute''': Masters, wives, and friends of College.
--> '''Brunning''': (shouting furiously) No!!! Masters, THEIR wives, and THE friends of college!!!
* LongingLook: One of the more controversial scenes (at the 1968 release) involves Philips [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4reeEObMeFI checking out Wallace]] as he performs on the high bar. The use of a young boy, shot in slow-mo to accentuate his beauty and the sexual tension, was incredibly risqué for 1968. [[note]]Gay sex had only just been decriminalised in Great Britain (from 1st Jan 1967): but the age of consent for gays was set at 21, five years after heteros. This sequence could still have been interpreted, legally, as conspiracy or incitement to corrupt a minor, or paedophilia.[[/note]]
* LoveAtFirstSight: Philips and Wallace have apparently never met, but Wallace has presumably seen Philips around and been attracted to him. Philips then falls for Wallace when he sees him perform a gymnastics routine. They start meeting secretly.
* LoveableRogue: Travis and his mates - Wallace and Johnny.
* LoverAndBeloved: Wallace has a relationship with the younger Philips, of whom he's protective, but who seems to be a more mature person than his lover.
* MeaningfulName: The Headmaster. [[spoiler:Guess where [[BoomHeadshot he gets shot.]]]]
* MeasuringDay: all the boys have a medical inspection by the matron, for which they have to drop their trousers while the matron examines them with a torch, ''in front of the whole school''.
* MindScrew: While undoubtedly a surreal film, it starts becoming this trope after the cafe scene.
* MoralGuardians: Predictably, and perhaps justifiably, the film caused moral outcry in a number of circles -- a British ambassador called the film "an insult to the nation". The then Lord Brabourne read an early draft and called it "the most evil and perverted script I've ever read. It must never see the light of day".
* MsFanservice: "The Girl" is ''HOT''
* NiceGuy: Wallace
* PedophilePriest[=/=]TeacherStudentRomance: A middle-aged chaplain and mathematics teacher at a boys' boarding school seems to take an interest in Jute, a pretty new boy in his class, probably 13 years old. The chaplain is skewered by Anderson's satire, as are most of the adults in the film.
* RealMenTakeItBlack: In the cafe scene, Travis takes his coffee black.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Travis delivers a cutting one to Rowntree, before he is about to cane him.
-->'''The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy bear to Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the rest of your frigid life.'''
* SadistTeacher / SinisterMinister: The chaplain, who is also the geometry master, enjoys grasping at boys' nipples through their shirts while they recite their lessons.
** LightIsNotGood
* SexIsViolence: Travis and "The Girl" wrestle and writhe around snarling at each other during their highly surreal, animalistic sex-scene.
* SituationalSexuality: ''All'' of the sixth form prefects (and some younger pupils) show an effusive (or uncomfortable) attraction to Bobby Philips, an extremely {{Bishounen}} First Year pupil.
** BoysLove: Wallace, having clocked Philips watching him practice in the gym, eventually takes him to bed.
* {{Swirlie}}: Biles, the dorm ButtMonkey, is dunked into a toilet.
* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Bobby Philips is a nice and beautiful, likely gay boy. However because of his beauty he is subjected to serving the prefects every want, one of which includes helping their leader of the bath tub, and it’s no secret they and half of the lust after him (and it’s likely worse has happened to him). He does get a boyfriend of sorts who protects him from the pervy prefects, but him being much older means one day (canon movie ending or not) that they would have to separate.
** Jute is a lovely looking boy who gets molested by his teacher and is put through hell just for being the new kid.
* TeensAreMonsters: All of the prefects, and sadly by the end, some of the main cast arguably.
* ToneShift: The first half of the film presents a ''fairly'' normal exposé of British boarding school life in 1968.....but things get much more [[MindScrew surreal]] in the second half, following the Café scenes.
** {{Surrealism}}
* TruthInTelevision: ''Any'' British ex-public school pupil, even those who recently left school, will recognise elements of their own schooling in the film -- eccentric teachers (cycling into a classroom is ''mild''), baffling rituals and rules of precedence, merciless bullying (for those unlucky enough not to avoid it), school-boy crushes, masters ''volleying'' homework across the form-room etc.
* TheVamp: "The Girl"
-->'''Go on. Look at me. Look at my eyes. I'll kill you. Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and my eyes get bigger and bigger. And I'm like a tiger. I like tigers. Rrrrah!'''
----
->''"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."''
-->-- '''Mick Travis'''
''if....'' is a 1968 film written by David Sherwin, directed by Lindsay Anderson, and starring Creator/MalcolmMcDowell, in his film debut, as Mick Travis.
The film is set at a BoardingSchool, and is best known for the climactic sequence in which conflicts between the students and the school authorities escalate into outright warfare with automatic weapons.
Sherwin, Anderson, and [=McDowell=] collaborated on two further films, ''O Lucky Man!'' and ''Britannia Hospital''; both also feature [=McDowell=] as a character named Mick Travis, but they do not constitute a series except in BroadStrokes.
The title is probably a sarcastic reference to Creator/RudyardKipling's [[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- famous poem]]. If you are searching for the equally subversive and seditious left-wing political cartoon series by Steve Bell, go '''[[ComicStrip/{{If}} here]]'''. Not to be confused with the video game ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'', which has a similarly-styled logo and also has a high school.
----
!!This film provides examples of:
* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: The Upper Sixth [[note]]"Year 13" in the new money[[/note]] "Whips" (prefects), lead by Rowntree, definitely rule the school and have a small army of younger pupils (the "Scum") who do fagging duties for them - making tea, running errands, warming toilet seats, shaving them....[[DepravedBisexual and probably other stuff too.]]
* AdultsAreUseless: The teachers, including the Head-Master, seem fairly oblivious to the goings-on at College House.
* AxesAtSchool: The film’s surreal final scenes show Travis and his comrades taking up arms and attacking fellow pupils, teachers and parents during Founder's Day.
* AntiHero: Travis, at most times NominalHero would fit too.
* AudienceSurrogate: Jute. Audiences unfamiliar with the particulars and traditions of British boarding school life are able to follow his bewilderment and subsequent crash-course in protocol as he starts the term at College House.
** MetaGuy
** FishOutOfWater: Both Jute and any viewers who may find the boarding school environment of the late 60's totally alien.
* {{Bishounen}}: Bobby Philips, with his feminine features and wavy, flaxen hair provides a ''textbook'' example.
--> '''Philips? That little blond - Mwah!'''
* BloodOath: Travis, Wallace and Yardley make a blood oath.
* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors
** OneGenderSchool: All boys.
* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler:At the end of the film, in a surreal sequence, Travis' group discovers a cache of automatic weapons, and revolt against the establishment. On Founders' Day, when parents are visiting the school, they start a fire under the hall, smoke out the parents, staff and boys, and open fire on them from a rooftop. Led by the visiting General who was giving the speech, the staff and boys break open the Combined Cadet Force armoury and fire back. The film ends just as "The Girl" shoots the Head-Master through the head - it is never revealed what happened following the uprising.]]
* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:The Girl shoots the Head Master in the head]].
* BourgeoisBohemian: Travis (and friends) are this in the making, with their strong counter-culture sympathies despite having clearly upper-middle class social backgrounds.
* BreakTheHaughty: Travis and friends regularly take the snotty Denson and power-hungry Stephans down a peg or two, even though both can technically order them about in their role as Whips (prefects).
--> '''Denson''': (showing the badge on his lapel) I serve the nation. You haven't any idea what it means, have you? To you it's one bloody joke.
--> '''Travis''': You mean that bit of wool on your tit?
* BrilliantButLazy: Travis.
* BritishStuffiness: The teachers and the prefects, and (most likely) parents.
* BullyHunter: Travis and Johnny Knightly, who never take any shit from the prefects.
* ButtMonkey: Biles
--> ''Pass it on - "Biles, why are you a freak?''
* CoolGuns: the Combined Cadet Force is equipped with Lee-Enfield rifles and Vickers machine guns; these are used to deadly effect.
* CoolTeacher: At first, the History master, with his eccentricities, and exhortations to his class to debate with him, looks as if he is one of these. His reaction to Travis demonstrating he actually knows the source of a quotation says otherwise.
* CorporalPunishment: There's a lengthy scene in which Mick and his friends are caned by the prefects. Afterwards they have to shake the prefect by the hand and thank him — a common tradition in public schools, apparently.
* CovertPervert: The apparently meek Mrs. Kemp enjoys walking naked through the boys' dormitory and washroom while fondling soap, towels and other objects the boys have carelessly strewn about.
** TheRuleOfFirstAdopters: The above scene features the first instance of a full-frontal female nude passed by the British Board of Film Classification.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: In another highly controversial scene, Mr. Kemp sings a hymn as his wife accompanies him on the recorder; the matron, overhearing, is driven to near orgasm.
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Some scenes are in black and white. Many people have tried to find the "pattern"; some think that the black and white scenes are fantasy or dreams, but others think that the colour scenes are. Malcolm [=McDowell=] claims that some of the scenes would have taken too long to light properly if they had been shot in colour, and then other scenes were shot black and white to add "texture". But another view is that the filmmakers ran into money troubles halfway through shooting and so had to shoot the rest of the scenes in black and white.
* TheDragon: Stephans acts as one to the Whips, which results in a lot of resentment from Travis and co.
--> ''One night we're gonna massacre you, Stephans - I'll do ya for free''
* FalseReassurance: To placate the understandably nervous head-master of the actual school used for the film's location, the filmmakers sent the school a fake script omitting the students turning on the staff and parents with guns.
* TheFatalist / NietzscheWannabe / PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery: Travis overlaps all three...
--> '''The whole world will end very soon - black, brittle bodies peeling into ash...'''
--> '''There's no such thing as a wrong war. Violence and revolution are the only pure acts.'''
--> '''One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.'''
* {{Flynning}}: Done deliberately when Travis, Cox and Knightley get into a sword fight more or less for the hell of it and tear around the school flynning for all they're worth.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: As the pupils return at the start of a new term, Travis arrives with a suitcase on his shoulder, wearing a black hat, with a black scarf across his face to hide his moustache. Stephans comments, "God, it's Guy Fawkes back again", hinting at the conclusion of the film....
* FourEyesZeroSoul: The cold-mannered prefect Denson wears glasses.
* GainaxEnding[=/=]NoEnding: [[spoiler:During the Founders' Day commencement speech, a fire starts and all the attendees run out. Mick and the Crusaders set off explosions and fire into the crowd. This changes when ''the crowd'' including a priest, a general and ''a knight'' get rifles and start firing back at them. The Headmaster calls for a ceasefire, but The Girl shoots him in the head. The film ends on the two groups firing at one another, with the ground mysteriously cleared of bodies.]]
* GuileHero: Travis
* HandCannon: [[spoiler: The Girl uses one to shoot The Headmaster.]]
* IDontPayYouToThink: The younger pupils or "scum" who wait on the older "whips" are certainly not expected to think for themselves.
--> '''Rowntree:''' What are these?
--> '''Philips:''' Muffins.
--> '''Rowntree:''' I thought I specifically ordered crumpets.
--> '''Philips:''' I couldn't get any, I thought these would do.
--> '''Rowntree:''' It's not up to you to think.
* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: [[spoiler: During the ending, the Crusaders and the Crowd tend to miss. Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] due to the surrealism of the scene (even people who fall over get back up) and that both groups are mostly inexperienced with these types of weapons.]]
* InsistentTerminology: Brunning drills Jute for a test.
--> '''Jute''': Masters, wives, and friends of College.
--> '''Brunning''': (shouting furiously) No!!! Masters, THEIR wives, and THE friends of college!!!
* LongingLook: One of the more controversial scenes (at the 1968 release) involves Philips [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4reeEObMeFI checking out Wallace]] as he performs on the high bar. The use of a young boy, shot in slow-mo to accentuate his beauty and the sexual tension, was incredibly risqué for 1968. [[note]]Gay sex had only just been decriminalised in Great Britain (from 1st Jan 1967): but the age of consent for gays was set at 21, five years after heteros. This sequence could still have been interpreted, legally, as conspiracy or incitement to corrupt a minor, or paedophilia.[[/note]]
* LoveAtFirstSight: Philips and Wallace have apparently never met, but Wallace has presumably seen Philips around and been attracted to him. Philips then falls for Wallace when he sees him perform a gymnastics routine. They start meeting secretly.
* LoveableRogue: Travis and his mates - Wallace and Johnny.
* LoverAndBeloved: Wallace has a relationship with the younger Philips, of whom he's protective, but who seems to be a more mature person than his lover.
* MeaningfulName: The Headmaster. [[spoiler:Guess where [[BoomHeadshot he gets shot.]]]]
* MeasuringDay: all the boys have a medical inspection by the matron, for which they have to drop their trousers while the matron examines them with a torch, ''in front of the whole school''.
* MindScrew: While undoubtedly a surreal film, it starts becoming this trope after the cafe scene.
* MoralGuardians: Predictably, and perhaps justifiably, the film caused moral outcry in a number of circles -- a British ambassador called the film "an insult to the nation". The then Lord Brabourne read an early draft and called it "the most evil and perverted script I've ever read. It must never see the light of day".
* MsFanservice: "The Girl" is ''HOT''
* NiceGuy: Wallace
* PedophilePriest[=/=]TeacherStudentRomance: A middle-aged chaplain and mathematics teacher at a boys' boarding school seems to take an interest in Jute, a pretty new boy in his class, probably 13 years old. The chaplain is skewered by Anderson's satire, as are most of the adults in the film.
* RealMenTakeItBlack: In the cafe scene, Travis takes his coffee black.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Travis delivers a cutting one to Rowntree, before he is about to cane him.
-->'''The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy bear to Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the rest of your frigid life.'''
* SadistTeacher / SinisterMinister: The chaplain, who is also the geometry master, enjoys grasping at boys' nipples through their shirts while they recite their lessons.
** LightIsNotGood
* SexIsViolence: Travis and "The Girl" wrestle and writhe around snarling at each other during their highly surreal, animalistic sex-scene.
* SituationalSexuality: ''All'' of the sixth form prefects (and some younger pupils) show an effusive (or uncomfortable) attraction to Bobby Philips, an extremely {{Bishounen}} First Year pupil.
** BoysLove: Wallace, having clocked Philips watching him practice in the gym, eventually takes him to bed.
* {{Swirlie}}: Biles, the dorm ButtMonkey, is dunked into a toilet.
* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Bobby Philips is a nice and beautiful, likely gay boy. However because of his beauty he is subjected to serving the prefects every want, one of which includes helping their leader of the bath tub, and it’s no secret they and half of the lust after him (and it’s likely worse has happened to him). He does get a boyfriend of sorts who protects him from the pervy prefects, but him being much older means one day (canon movie ending or not) that they would have to separate.
** Jute is a lovely looking boy who gets molested by his teacher and is put through hell just for being the new kid.
* TeensAreMonsters: All of the prefects, and sadly by the end, some of the main cast arguably.
* ToneShift: The first half of the film presents a ''fairly'' normal exposé of British boarding school life in 1968.....but things get much more [[MindScrew surreal]] in the second half, following the Café scenes.
** {{Surrealism}}
* TruthInTelevision: ''Any'' British ex-public school pupil, even those who recently left school, will recognise elements of their own schooling in the film -- eccentric teachers (cycling into a classroom is ''mild''), baffling rituals and rules of precedence, merciless bullying (for those unlucky enough not to avoid it), school-boy crushes, masters ''volleying'' homework across the form-room etc.
* TheVamp: "The Girl"
-->'''Go on. Look at me. Look at my eyes. I'll kill you. Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and my eyes get bigger and bigger. And I'm like a tiger. I like tigers. Rrrrah!'''
----
to:
->''"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."''
-->-- '''Mick Travis'''
''if....'' is a 1968 film written by David Sherwin, directed by Lindsay Anderson, and starring Creator/MalcolmMcDowell, in his film debut, as Mick Travis.
The film is set at a BoardingSchool, and is best known for the climactic sequence in which conflicts between the students and the school authorities escalate into outright warfare with automatic weapons.
Sherwin, Anderson, and [=McDowell=] collaborated on two further films, ''O Lucky Man!'' and ''Britannia Hospital''; both also feature [=McDowell=] as a character named Mick Travis, but they do not constitute a series except in BroadStrokes.
The title is probably a sarcastic reference to Creator/RudyardKipling's [[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- famous poem]]. If you are searching for the equally subversive and seditious left-wing political cartoon series by Steve Bell, go '''[[ComicStrip/{{If}} here]]'''. Not to be confused with the video game ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'', which has a similarly-styled logo and also has a high school.
----
!!This film provides examples of:
* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: The Upper Sixth [[note]]"Year 13" in the new money[[/note]] "Whips" (prefects), lead by Rowntree, definitely rule the school and have a small army of younger pupils (the "Scum") who do fagging duties for them - making tea, running errands, warming toilet seats, shaving them....[[DepravedBisexual and probably other stuff too.]]
* AdultsAreUseless: The teachers, including the Head-Master, seem fairly oblivious to the goings-on at College House.
* AxesAtSchool: The film’s surreal final scenes show Travis and his comrades taking up arms and attacking fellow pupils, teachers and parents during Founder's Day.
* AntiHero: Travis, at most times NominalHero would fit too.
* AudienceSurrogate: Jute. Audiences unfamiliar with the particulars and traditions of British boarding school life are able to follow his bewilderment and subsequent crash-course in protocol as he starts the term at College House.
** MetaGuy
** FishOutOfWater: Both Jute and any viewers who may find the boarding school environment of the late 60's totally alien.
* {{Bishounen}}: Bobby Philips, with his feminine features and wavy, flaxen hair provides a ''textbook'' example.
--> '''Philips? That little blond - Mwah!'''
* BloodOath: Travis, Wallace and Yardley make a blood oath.
* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors
** OneGenderSchool: All boys.
* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler:At the end of the film, in a surreal sequence, Travis' group discovers a cache of automatic weapons, and revolt against the establishment. On Founders' Day, when parents are visiting the school, they start a fire under the hall, smoke out the parents, staff and boys, and open fire on them from a rooftop. Led by the visiting General who was giving the speech, the staff and boys break open the Combined Cadet Force armoury and fire back. The film ends just as "The Girl" shoots the Head-Master through the head - it is never revealed what happened following the uprising.]]
* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:The Girl shoots the Head Master in the head]].
* BourgeoisBohemian: Travis (and friends) are this in the making, with their strong counter-culture sympathies despite having clearly upper-middle class social backgrounds.
* BreakTheHaughty: Travis and friends regularly take the snotty Denson and power-hungry Stephans down a peg or two, even though both can technically order them about in their role as Whips (prefects).
--> '''Denson''': (showing the badge on his lapel) I serve the nation. You haven't any idea what it means, have you? To you it's one bloody joke.
--> '''Travis''': You mean that bit of wool on your tit?
* BrilliantButLazy: Travis.
* BritishStuffiness: The teachers and the prefects, and (most likely) parents.
* BullyHunter: Travis and Johnny Knightly, who never take any shit from the prefects.
* ButtMonkey: Biles
--> ''Pass it on - "Biles, why are you a freak?''
* CoolGuns: the Combined Cadet Force is equipped with Lee-Enfield rifles and Vickers machine guns; these are used to deadly effect.
* CoolTeacher: At first, the History master, with his eccentricities, and exhortations to his class to debate with him, looks as if he is one of these. His reaction to Travis demonstrating he actually knows the source of a quotation says otherwise.
* CorporalPunishment: There's a lengthy scene in which Mick and his friends are caned by the prefects. Afterwards they have to shake the prefect by the hand and thank him — a common tradition in public schools, apparently.
* CovertPervert: The apparently meek Mrs. Kemp enjoys walking naked through the boys' dormitory and washroom while fondling soap, towels and other objects the boys have carelessly strewn about.
** TheRuleOfFirstAdopters: The above scene features the first instance of a full-frontal female nude passed by the British Board of Film Classification.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: In another highly controversial scene, Mr. Kemp sings a hymn as his wife accompanies him on the recorder; the matron, overhearing, is driven to near orgasm.
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Some scenes are in black and white. Many people have tried to find the "pattern"; some think that the black and white scenes are fantasy or dreams, but others think that the colour scenes are. Malcolm [=McDowell=] claims that some of the scenes would have taken too long to light properly if they had been shot in colour, and then other scenes were shot black and white to add "texture". But another view is that the filmmakers ran into money troubles halfway through shooting and so had to shoot the rest of the scenes in black and white.
* TheDragon: Stephans acts as one to the Whips, which results in a lot of resentment from Travis and co.
--> ''One night we're gonna massacre you, Stephans - I'll do ya for free''
* FalseReassurance: To placate the understandably nervous head-master of the actual school used for the film's location, the filmmakers sent the school a fake script omitting the students turning on the staff and parents with guns.
* TheFatalist / NietzscheWannabe / PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery: Travis overlaps all three...
--> '''The whole world will end very soon - black, brittle bodies peeling into ash...'''
--> '''There's no such thing as a wrong war. Violence and revolution are the only pure acts.'''
--> '''One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.'''
* {{Flynning}}: Done deliberately when Travis, Cox and Knightley get into a sword fight more or less for the hell of it and tear around the school flynning for all they're worth.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: As the pupils return at the start of a new term, Travis arrives with a suitcase on his shoulder, wearing a black hat, with a black scarf across his face to hide his moustache. Stephans comments, "God, it's Guy Fawkes back again", hinting at the conclusion of the film....
* FourEyesZeroSoul: The cold-mannered prefect Denson wears glasses.
* GainaxEnding[=/=]NoEnding: [[spoiler:During the Founders' Day commencement speech, a fire starts and all the attendees run out. Mick and the Crusaders set off explosions and fire into the crowd. This changes when ''the crowd'' including a priest, a general and ''a knight'' get rifles and start firing back at them. The Headmaster calls for a ceasefire, but The Girl shoots him in the head. The film ends on the two groups firing at one another, with the ground mysteriously cleared of bodies.]]
* GuileHero: Travis
* HandCannon: [[spoiler: The Girl uses one to shoot The Headmaster.]]
* IDontPayYouToThink: The younger pupils or "scum" who wait on the older "whips" are certainly not expected to think for themselves.
--> '''Rowntree:''' What are these?
--> '''Philips:''' Muffins.
--> '''Rowntree:''' I thought I specifically ordered crumpets.
--> '''Philips:''' I couldn't get any, I thought these would do.
--> '''Rowntree:''' It's not up to you to think.
* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: [[spoiler: During the ending, the Crusaders and the Crowd tend to miss. Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] due to the surrealism of the scene (even people who fall over get back up) and that both groups are mostly inexperienced with these types of weapons.]]
* InsistentTerminology: Brunning drills Jute for a test.
--> '''Jute''': Masters, wives, and friends of College.
--> '''Brunning''': (shouting furiously) No!!! Masters, THEIR wives, and THE friends of college!!!
* LongingLook: One of the more controversial scenes (at the 1968 release) involves Philips [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4reeEObMeFI checking out Wallace]] as he performs on the high bar. The use of a young boy, shot in slow-mo to accentuate his beauty and the sexual tension, was incredibly risqué for 1968. [[note]]Gay sex had only just been decriminalised in Great Britain (from 1st Jan 1967): but the age of consent for gays was set at 21, five years after heteros. This sequence could still have been interpreted, legally, as conspiracy or incitement to corrupt a minor, or paedophilia.[[/note]]
* LoveAtFirstSight: Philips and Wallace have apparently never met, but Wallace has presumably seen Philips around and been attracted to him. Philips then falls for Wallace when he sees him perform a gymnastics routine. They start meeting secretly.
* LoveableRogue: Travis and his mates - Wallace and Johnny.
* LoverAndBeloved: Wallace has a relationship with the younger Philips, of whom he's protective, but who seems to be a more mature person than his lover.
* MeaningfulName: The Headmaster. [[spoiler:Guess where [[BoomHeadshot he gets shot.]]]]
* MeasuringDay: all the boys have a medical inspection by the matron, for which they have to drop their trousers while the matron examines them with a torch, ''in front of the whole school''.
* MindScrew: While undoubtedly a surreal film, it starts becoming this trope after the cafe scene.
* MoralGuardians: Predictably, and perhaps justifiably, the film caused moral outcry in a number of circles -- a British ambassador called the film "an insult to the nation". The then Lord Brabourne read an early draft and called it "the most evil and perverted script I've ever read. It must never see the light of day".
* MsFanservice: "The Girl" is ''HOT''
* NiceGuy: Wallace
* PedophilePriest[=/=]TeacherStudentRomance: A middle-aged chaplain and mathematics teacher at a boys' boarding school seems to take an interest in Jute, a pretty new boy in his class, probably 13 years old. The chaplain is skewered by Anderson's satire, as are most of the adults in the film.
* RealMenTakeItBlack: In the cafe scene, Travis takes his coffee black.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Travis delivers a cutting one to Rowntree, before he is about to cane him.
-->'''The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy bear to Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the rest of your frigid life.'''
* SadistTeacher / SinisterMinister: The chaplain, who is also the geometry master, enjoys grasping at boys' nipples through their shirts while they recite their lessons.
** LightIsNotGood
* SexIsViolence: Travis and "The Girl" wrestle and writhe around snarling at each other during their highly surreal, animalistic sex-scene.
* SituationalSexuality: ''All'' of the sixth form prefects (and some younger pupils) show an effusive (or uncomfortable) attraction to Bobby Philips, an extremely {{Bishounen}} First Year pupil.
** BoysLove: Wallace, having clocked Philips watching him practice in the gym, eventually takes him to bed.
* {{Swirlie}}: Biles, the dorm ButtMonkey, is dunked into a toilet.
* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Bobby Philips is a nice and beautiful, likely gay boy. However because of his beauty he is subjected to serving the prefects every want, one of which includes helping their leader of the bath tub, and it’s no secret they and half of the lust after him (and it’s likely worse has happened to him). He does get a boyfriend of sorts who protects him from the pervy prefects, but him being much older means one day (canon movie ending or not) that they would have to separate.
** Jute is a lovely looking boy who gets molested by his teacher and is put through hell just for being the new kid.
* TeensAreMonsters: All of the prefects, and sadly by the end, some of the main cast arguably.
* ToneShift: The first half of the film presents a ''fairly'' normal exposé of British boarding school life in 1968.....but things get much more [[MindScrew surreal]] in the second half, following the Café scenes.
** {{Surrealism}}
* TruthInTelevision: ''Any'' British ex-public school pupil, even those who recently left school, will recognise elements of their own schooling in the film -- eccentric teachers (cycling into a classroom is ''mild''), baffling rituals and rules of precedence, merciless bullying (for those unlucky enough not to avoid it), school-boy crushes, masters ''volleying'' homework across the form-room etc.
* TheVamp: "The Girl"
-->'''Go on. Look at me. Look at my eyes. I'll kill you. Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and my eyes get bigger and bigger. And I'm like a tiger. I like tigers. Rrrrah!'''
----
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Changed line(s) 35 (click to see context) from:
* BritishStuffiness: The teaches and the prefects, and (most likely) parents.
to:
* BritishStuffiness: The teaches teachers and the prefects, and (most likely) parents.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Travis delivers a cutting one to Rowntree, before he is about to cane him.
-->'''The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy bear to Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the rest of your frigid life.'''
-->'''The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy bear to Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the rest of your frigid life.'''
Deleted line(s) 90,91 (click to see context) :
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Travis delivers a cutting one to Rowntree, before he is about to cane him.
-->'''The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy bear to Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the rest of your frigid life.'''
-->'''The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy bear to Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the rest of your frigid life.'''
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* IDontPayYouToThink: The younger pupils or "scum" who wait on the older "whips" are certainly not expected to think for themselves.
--> '''Rowntree:''' What are these?
--> '''Philips:''' Muffins.
--> '''Rowntree:''' I thought I specifically ordered crumpets.
--> '''Philips:''' I couldn't get any, I thought these would do.
--> '''Rowntree:''' It's not up to you to think.
--> '''Rowntree:''' What are these?
--> '''Philips:''' Muffins.
--> '''Rowntree:''' I thought I specifically ordered crumpets.
--> '''Philips:''' I couldn't get any, I thought these would do.
--> '''Rowntree:''' It's not up to you to think.
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Changed line(s) 81,83 (click to see context) from:
* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Bobby Philips is a nice likely gay boy, however because of his beauty he is subjected to serving the prefects, which includes helping one out of the bath tub, and it’s no secret they and half of the lust after him (and it’s likely he’s been through worse). He does get a boyfriend of sorts who protects him, but him being much older means one day (movie ending or not) that they would separate.
** Jute is a lovely boy who gets molested by his teacher and put through hell because he’s the new kid.
* TeensAreMonsters: All of the prefects, and sadly by the end, the main cast
** Jute is a lovely boy who gets molested by his teacher and put through hell because he’s the new kid.
* TeensAreMonsters: All of the prefects, and sadly by the end, the main cast
to:
* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Bobby Philips is a nice and beautiful, likely gay boy, however boy. However because of his beauty he is subjected to serving the prefects, prefects every want, one of which includes helping one out their leader of the bath tub, and it’s no secret they and half of the lust after him (and it’s likely he’s been through worse). worse has happened to him). He does get a boyfriend of sorts who protects him, him from the pervy prefects, but him being much older means one day (movie (canon movie ending or not) that they would have to separate.
** Jute is a lovely looking boy who gets molested by his teacher and is put through hellbecause he’s just for being the new kid.
* TeensAreMonsters: All of the prefects, and sadly by the end, some of the maincastcast arguably.
** Jute is a lovely looking boy who gets molested by his teacher and is put through hell
* TeensAreMonsters: All of the prefects, and sadly by the end, some of the main
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Changed line(s) 81 (click to see context) from:
* SoBeautifulit’saCurse: Bobby Philips is a nice likely gay boy, however because of his beauty he is subjected to serving the prefects, which includes helping one out of the bath tub, and it’s no secret they and half of the lust after him (and it’s likely he’s been through worse). He does get a boyfriend of sorts who protects him, but him being much older means one day (movie ending or not) that they would separate.
to:
* SoBeautifulit’saCurse: SoBeautifulItsACurse: Bobby Philips is a nice likely gay boy, however because of his beauty he is subjected to serving the prefects, which includes helping one out of the bath tub, and it’s no secret they and half of the lust after him (and it’s likely he’s been through worse). He does get a boyfriend of sorts who protects him, but him being much older means one day (movie ending or not) that they would separate.
