if.... is a 1968 British drama film produced and directed by Lindsay Anderson, and starring Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis, and also starring Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, David Wood, and Robert Swann. A satire of English public school life, the film follows a group of students who stage a savage insurrection at a boys' boarding school. The film was the subject of controversy at the time of its release, receiving an X certificate for its depictions of violence.
if.... won the Palme d'Or at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.[3] In 1999, the British Film Institute named it the 12th greatest British film of the 20th century; in 2004, the magazine Total Film named it the 16th greatest British film of all time. In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine ranked it the 9th best British film ever.[4] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 92% approval rating based on 48 reviews, with an average score of 7.9/10. According to the site's critical consensus, "Incendiary, subversive, and darkly humorous, If.... is a landmark of British countercultural cinema."[5]
The film opens at a traditional British public school for boys in the late 1960s, as the pupils return after the summer for a new Michaelmas term. Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) arrives hiding his face, as he has grown a moustache, and quickly shaves it off. He, Wallace (Richard Warwick), and Knightly (David Wood) are three non-conformist boys in the lower sixth form, their penultimate year. They are watched and persecuted by the "Whips", upper sixth-formers given authority as prefects over the other boys. The junior boys are made to act as personal servants for the Whips, who discuss them as sex objects.
Early scenes show the school's customs and traditions. The headmaster (Peter Jeffrey) is remote from the boys and the housemasters. The protagonists' housemaster, Mr Kemp (Arthur Lowe), is easily manipulated by the Whips into giving them free rein in enforcing discipline. Some schoolmasters are shown behaving bizarrely.
One day, Mick and Johnny sneak off the school grounds and steal a motorbike from a showroom. They ride to a café staffed by an unnamed girl (Christine Noonan), about whom Mick fantasizes wrestling naked. Meanwhile, Wallace spends time with a younger boy, Bobby Philips, and later shares his bed.
Later, the three boys drink vodka in their study and consider how one man holds the potential to "change the world with a bullet in the right place." Their clashes with school authorities become increasingly contentious. Eventually, a brutal caning by the Whips spurs them to action.
During a school Combined Cadet Force military drill, Mick acquires live ammunition, which he, Wallace, and Knightly use to open fire on a group of boys and masters, including Kemp and the school chaplain (Geoffrey Chater). When the latter orders the boys to drop their weapons, Mick assaults him and cows him into submission.
As punishment for their actions, the trio are ordered by the headmaster to clean out a large storeroom beneath the main school hall. In a surreal sequence, they discover a cache of firearms, including automatic weapons and mortars. Joined by Philips and the girl from the café, they commit to revolt against the establishment.
On Founders' Day, when parents are visiting the school, the group starts a fire under the hall, smoking everyone out of the building. They then open fire on them from the rooftop. Led by a visiting General (Anthony Nicholls) who was giving a speech, the staff, students, and parents break open the Combined Cadet Force armoury and begin firing back. The headmaster tries to stop the fight, imploring the group to listen to reasoning. In response, the girl shoots him between the eyes. The battle continues, and the camera closes in on Mick's determined face as he keeps firing.
if.... is the first film in the "Mick Travis trilogy", all starring Malcolm McDowell as everyman character Mick Travis. The others are:
O Lucky Man! (1973)
Britannia Hospital (1982)
However, those two movies do not follow the same continuity of the first film, and have little in common other than the main character of Mick Travis and several identically-named characters in similar roles (on the commentary track for O Lucky Man!, Malcolm McDowell refers to it as a "so-called trilogy"). At the time of Anderson's death he had completed a final draft of a proper sequel to if...., but it was never made. The sequel takes place during a Founders' Day celebration at which many of the characters reunite. Mick Travis is now an Oscar-nominated movie star, eschewing England for Hollywood. Wallace is a military major who has lost his arm, Johnny is a clergyman, and Rowntree is the Minister of War. In the script, Rowntree is kidnapped by a group of anti-war students and saved by Mick and his gang, though not before Mick crucifies Rowntree with a large nail through his palm.[14]
