Rent The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950)
3.8 of 5 from 87 ratings
1h 19min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Nutbourn College, the most established and respectable of boys' schools, is run by unyielding Headmaster Wetherby Pond. When a military mistake billets a girls' school to share the college's premises due to wartime restrictions, he is outraged. However, he soon discovers he has met his match when he encounters the Headmistress of the girls' school in question, the formidable Muriel Whitchurch. Initially the two are hostile to one another, but with a staff of dazed, eccentric teachers and a student body whose mischief knows no bounds, they are forced to pull together. Then, just when they thought the situation couldn't get any more complicated, they discover they are faced with two troublesome visits on the same day; one from a group of parents, who must believe the school is only for girls, and one from the Ministry, who must be presented with an all boys establishment! - Actors:
- Alastair Sim, Margaret Rutherford, John Turnbull, Richard Wattis, John Bentley, Guy Middleton, Percy Walsh, Arthur Howard, Edward Rigby, Harold Goodwin, Gladys Henson, Muriel Aked, Joyce Grenfell, Bernadette O'Farrell, Myrette Morven, Patience Rentoul, Lilian Stanley, Kenneth Downey, Laurence Naismith, Stringer Davis
- Directors:
- Frank Launder
- Producers:
- Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder, Stephen Harrison, Mario Zampi
- Writers:
- John Dighton, Frank Launder
- Studio:
- Optimum
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy
- Collections:
- 1949: That Ealing Feeling, Back to School: Best Films Featuring Teachers, Cinema Paradiso's 2024 Centenary Club: Part 1, Cinema Paradiso's 2025 Centenary Club: January - March, Films & TV by topic, Films to Watch If You Like..., A Brief History of Film..., The Instant Expert's Guide to Terence Davies, Top 10 Films of 1972, Top Films, What to Watch Next If You Liked Scrooge
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 05/10/2015
- Run Time:
- 82 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.37:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Interview with Andy Merriman - Margaret Rutherford Biographer
- Interview with Martin Rowson - Cartoonist
- Interview with Michael Brooke - Author/Journalist
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Reviews (5) of The Happiest Days of Your Life
Chaos in the Classroom - The Happiest Days of Your Life review by griggs
For a film about schools colliding, this one spends remarkably little time in the classroom. The Happiest Days of Your Life sets up a great premise — an all-boys and an all-girls school accidentally forced to share a building — but never quite makes the most of it. Adapted from a stage play, it feels more like staff-room satire than schoolyard chaos, with the teachers getting the laughs while the pupils fade into the background.
Still, as a comic showcase for Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford, it’s hard to beat. Their duelling egos and impeccable timing turn even the smallest squabble into farce. The script is surprisingly cheeky for 1950, poking fun at propriety while never quite breaking it.
By the end, the energy dips and the farce turns muddled rather than madcap. Yet it remains a charming slice of postwar British chaos — all manners, mishaps, and just a hint of mischief.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Jolly japes - The Happiest Days of Your Life review by PVB
Posh fun in post war Britain. Ludicrous story which adds to the nonsense.
Harmless nonsense from posh people.
1 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Classic British Comedy - The Happiest Days of Your Life review by GI
A great British classic comedy in the mould of the Ealing Comedies and the St Trinians films, indeed the British class based private school system was a launchpad for comedy in film, literature and comics. Indeed you can see how films like this later influenced the early Carry On movies and later comedy such as TVs Fawlty Towers. But this is a cut above because of the fantastic lead actors in Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford (often forgotten British treasures). It's basically a farce centred around the restrained attitudes to sex and gender politics and one or two aspects may seem out of place to a modern audience. Set in the comedy gold world of a public school Sim plays Wetherby Pond, a pompous headmaster who fawns around the parents and Governors in the hope of advancement. When a Girls School is boarded with his boys it's more the gender mix of the teachers that causes such a hullabaloo rather than the pupils. This is a gloriously funny film and portrays a nostalgic picture of post war rural England.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.