The Happiest Days of Your Life

This English classic couldn't miss with Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford in the same movie (he's the head of a boys' school who has to accomodate her school and staff during wartime alongside their own). There's also the delightfully dotty Joyce Grenfell (Miss Gossage, 'call me sausage'). The Happiest Days ... falls back on slapstick farce and, rather like the St Trinian's series, sends up the whole boarding school culture with glee. It all gets incredibly silly and, as such, is a genuinely hilarious and harmless hour and a half of entertainment.

The play is cleverly constructed - begin with the porter, Rainbow - & let the audience see the background unfold through his eyes. The film follows the play with great faithfulness, working, no doubt, on the simple premise that it couldn't be bettered. Now throw in a host of superb character actors - & the result is a resounding triumph.A definite must-see.

Had heard a lot of great things about 'The Happiest Days of Your Life' from family friends and trusted critic reviews. The idea, of an all-boys and all-girls uniting as one, sounded like it would be really entertaining and having two acting greats in Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford (both joys to watch in pretty much everything they're in, have seldom known them to be any less than bright spots) in the same film proved very difficult to resist. Watching it, 'The Happiest Days of Your Life' proved to be every bit as great as hoped and more. Actually one of the best and funniest films seen recently (school culture and life has seldom being more observantly, slyly, charmingly or hilariously depicted), and as over the top as it sounds to some that is not an exaggeration. Of my recent viewings, there has been a mix of brilliant, great, very good, good, decent, average, mediocre and terrible (so basically hit and miss), 'The Happiest Days of Your Life' really stood out and in a brilliant way. It deserves every ounce of the praise given to it, yet to me it is actually deserving to be given more credit and exposure. Both Sim and Rutherford are on top form, with comic timing so expertly and knowing that most would only wish of having. Rutherford especially is superb and shares a dream of a chemistry with Sim, as they bounce off each other in a way that is never less than edge-of-the-seat riveting. They and their chemistry are what makes this film and one does wish that they were in more films together. That does not mean that the rest of the cast should be overlooked, because Joyce Grenfell is particularly splendidly dotty and the support from Guy Middleton and Richard Wattis sparkles. Also sparkling is one of the wittiest, most beautifully structured and funniest scripts in the history of British comedy from personal opinion, one chock-full of sophistication and hilarious lines that the laughter is practically non-stop and not once does it feel stale or lose momentum. On top of being that entertaining, the increasingly frenetic antics never become confusing or overplayed, things may get a little chaotic at the end but that was clearly the intent and it was fun to watch. The story is slight and simple but there is not an air of contrivance or over-predictability, and everything feels cohesive. It's directed with verve and class by Frank Launder, it moves at a lively pace meaning that the short length doesn't ever feel long and it's pleasing visually without being stage-bound. Overall, a wonderful film that made me happy. As one can guess the main reasons to watch it are Sim, Rutherford and the script. 10/10 Bethany Cox

This film, without doubt, is the clearest example of the British humour the Germans can't understand. One-liners run rampant in a film spawning one of the greatest series of films in British cinema history (St.Trinians). The story of bureaucratic incompetence amid post-war trials enables Frank Launder to direct maximum talent from all the cast. It's probably the only film in which Margaret Rutherford meets her match, in Alastair Sim, for forceful characterisation (she still wins though). Joyce Grenfell (bless her) and Richard Wattis both deserve mentions in Dighton's masterpiece of English etiquette and stiff upper lip under pressure. No Rutherford/Sim/Grenfell fan would be without this in their collection. Absolutely brilliant. Why 9/10? Only 83mins long.

Based on a stage play and very popular when released. This now looks tame, silly, slap dash and not very funny. The Happiest Days of Your Life is set in 1949 when St Swithin's Girls' School is accidentally billeted at Nutbourne College which is a boys' school. The head of the boys school is Wetherby Pond (Alastair Sim) which is failing. The teachers there are rather lax and Pond plans to call it a day and head for new pastures. The staff are perturbed when the head of the girl's school Muriel Whitchurch (Margaret Rutherford) arrives with her pupils and teachers. The arrival of the girls causes chaos as they do not have enough facilities such as dormitory beds for everyone. The staff and heads of the respective schools vie to get the best resources first. Matters come to a head when a some school governors arrive to look at the boy's school and the parents of the pupils arrive to look at the girl's school. Pond and Whitchurch have to work together that they can fool everyone that it is a single sex school. This farce might had worked on stage and it might had been rip roaringly funny back in 1950. It certainly does not stand up well now. Sim, Rutherford, Joyce Grenfell and George Cole are good as ever and it does look like a prototype St Trinian's film.

THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE is redolent of an era of 'make do and mend,' when everyone in Britain had to endure the privations of education on a shoestring. Based on a stage success, Frank Launder's film boasts two towering central performances by Alistair Sim and Margaret Rutherford as the head teachers of the boys' and girls' schools forced to share accommodation. The two actors have a field day, using their full range of facial expressions to create characters who, although harassed, can make the best of an almost impossible situation. The supporting cast contains some memorable cameos, notably Joyce Grenfell as Miss Gossage ("you can call me sausage"), Richard Wattis as a harassed teacher (no one could do harassed like Wattis), and Guy Rolfe as a slimy boys' school teacher with an eye for young women. The film zips along at breakneck speed, especially at the end, when the two head teachers try their best to convince some visitors that everything in their school is perfectly normal. THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE is only seventy-five minutes long, but is nonetheless packed with incident and humor. Definitely worth a look if you're feeling low.

Apparently this had them rolling in the aisles in 1950, that was, of course, long before there was at least one casino in every large town. It's astounding to realise that a REAL comedy, Blithe Spirit, had been produced on stage a full ten years previously yet dramatist John Dighton cheerfully snatched a suet pudding from the jaws of a soufflé'. It's hardly even a one-joke plot, a 'what-if' idea carried to its logical conclusion. After establishing that Nutbourne Boys School is run by an inept staff of stereotypes a bureaucratic error merges them with a Girls school (though we are not informed of the teaching standards that obtain there. After a reel and a half or so of hostilities between the respective heads we descend into farce as a group of parents turn up to see their daughters in their new school at the exact same time that a group of Governors from the Boys school turn up for a regulation inspection. The two antagonists are obliged to join forces and improvise a time-table to avoid the two groups meeting and each group unaware that the school is now mixed. For those who find the 'Carry On' series cutting edge.

No point in giving too many plot details here, just take the basic premise of an all girls school being assigned to an all boys school by mistake, add that on the same day the girl's headmistress has to show a group of visiting parents around while the boy's headmaster (who is due to be promoted to a senior position at a new college) has to show his new employers around and I think you'll get the picture. This fifty year old comedy wears well. The pace is frantic, like a French farce with doors opening and closing and much dashing along corridors with split second timing as the two groups try to avoid each other. Magaret Rutherford and Alistair Sim ham it up superbly and there are many familiar faces in the supporting cast, all of whom react with great professionalism. At ninety minutes the film doesn't out stay it's welcome, and there's even time for a little romance that doesn't slow up the action one bit. Incidentally I had forgotten how sexy the gym outfits of English schoolgirls of that period were. It bought back memories.

In my younger days in the '60's/70's I used to prefer this film over The Belles Of St. Trinian's, Alistair Sim's other schoolmasterpiece from 4 years later. Happiest Days has the delicious meeting between the unflappable Sim and the indomitable Margaret Rutherford while Trinians had the unrepeatable meeting between Sim and Sim. Also this story didn't have such a broad canvas and watching it tonight for the first time in 20 years and finding I remembered perfectly every line and every image made me realise it's gone deeper than I thought. Simpler is often more effective, is that how come it appears so short? A lot of half-baked and over-baked ideas were thrown into this brief 80 minute mix. Boys school run by Sim and his band of bachelors is physically invaded by girls school run by Rutherford and her set of spinsters thanks a series of lackadaisical mistakes at the Ministry Of Inboxes (still in existence) and they all have to try and make do and mend. The main comedy is in adjusting to the novelty of the situation and trying to maintain the pretence that there was only one school in the building to the various visitors to both schools descending at the same time. Sly jokes fall thick and fast delivered by an expert slapstick cast, sardonic Richard Wattis – who went on later to Trinians and Sykes, ladykiller Guy Middleton, fluffy Arthur Howard – who went on to Jimmy Edwards' Whack-O as Mr Pettigrew, and flighty Joyce Grenfell. But it's the sparking, the verbal sparring of Sim and Rutherford in every scene they're in that's so wonderful to behold and is the big reason for watching the film. The time has now gone, the Britain this shows was murdered decades ago. For instance we now live in a world where the two Guard Thine Honour jokes in here will be meaningless to most or if understood probably treated with contempt by most of the rest. But recommended by this simple guy for a laugh and a sigh.

After a long run in the West End this charming film re-cast Margaret Rutherford as the Headmistress 'Miss Whitchurch' in this financially successful adaptation made in 1950. All interior shots took place at Riverside studios in Hammersmith, London. The exterior scenes were filmed on location at a public girl's school near Liss in Hampshire. During the 12 - week shoot both Margaret Rutherford and Joyce Grenfell were staying in a hotel nearby and would often visit the school during the evenings where they would happily enjoy the company of the real school mistresses. Although the film's script contains only two original lines from the original play the leads and supporting actors are in fine form and you can only feel sympathetic for their predicament especially in the final scenes.