All language subtitles for CLASSIC MOVIES STORY OF - 4 - Documentary (2024) –

We haven't had
a stoppings like this for ages,

not since the week before last.

I'm terribly sorry about it.
You don't want to be sorry, squire.

It makes a nice little break,
doesn't it?

(HORN BLARES)

(AGITATED CHATTER)

What's up now?
Dinner time. Come on, cock.

Blimey, all go today, innit?

Released in 1959,

I'm All Right Jack went to the top
of the British Box Office.

A film that spoke to its times

and gazed suspiciously
into the future.

Beneath the laughter lies
a provocative study of politics,

class, aspiration,
greed, and division.

A vision that, chillingly, still
holds true over 60 years later.

There is a lot of British comedy
in that era which is very funny,

but it's very parochial, you know,

it will usually be
about jewel robbery

or sort of some people in prison,

or robbing a bank or something.

Whereas I'm All Right Jack,
right from the first frame,

it is very much
setting itself out as being

a state of the nation film.

It's a very ambitious film,

it's making a big, bold statement

about British society since the war.

Hey you, you!
What do you think you're doing?

I'm frightfully sorry,

I'm afraid I haven't quite got
this thing buttoned up yet.

What's your name?
Windrush.

The permanently bewildered
Ian Carmichael

makes for a splendid patsy
as Stanley Windrush,

the post twit who is landed
on the factory floor,

a pawn both for the
self-important union

and the scheming bosses.

But the movie belongs to Sellers.

What makes Kite so memorable,

is that he rises above caricature.

He is an idealist, even a romantic,

trapped in his dreams
of class equality and a truculent,

very British,
devotion to the rules.

(TRIUMPHANT MUSIC)

(TRIUMPHANT MUSIC CONTINUES)

MAN: 'Look hard,

for this is the last
we shall see of Sir John,

a Justice of the Peace,

Chairman of the Rotten
Unionist Association,

Vice-president of his local
British Legion,

Honorary Chairman
of the Regional Board

for the Adjustment
of Distressed Gentlewomen,

and Sleeping Partner
in that vast financial complex,

the City and Threadneedle Trust.

Yes, there goes Sir John,

a solid block in the edifice
of what seemed to be

an ordered and stable society.

There he goes, on his way out.

(CHEERING)

For with victory came a new age,

and with that new age,
a new spirit.'

(LAUGHS)

# I'm all right, Jack

# I'm OK

# That is the message for today #

The film is filled
with British greats.

Not only Sellers
and Carmichael,

but Terry-Thomas,
Dennis Price,

Richard Attenborough,
Irene Handl,

and Margaret Rutherford.

It was directed
by the versatile John Boulting,

and produced by his twin Roy,

the brothers behind Brighton Rock.

I'm All Right Jack
is a social satire

where, possibly for the first time
in British cinema,

the filmmakers were looking

to really go into detail
about the trade union movement

and its relationship
with management.

This hadn't really been done before.

There had been a number of films
about, for instance, class conflict

between the ranks in the army
and the upper classes in the army,

or there's been street-based
sequences with class,

but the idea of moving it
into the workplace

and examining workplace tensions,
was actually revolutionary.

It was also accurate.

The people who made this film
wanted to create a realistic comedy

with over-the-top
satirical characters.

This beginning of the challenging
and understanding

the interpretation
of British institutions.

It's a revolutionary
piece of work in many ways,

and it... it changed the way
that comedy was made.

A lot of the archetypes
we see in this film go on to become

strong archetypes in British comedy

throughout the 60s, 70s,
and onwards.

So they wanted to draw out
what was happening,

but also make a much
broader statement

about the structure of the society.
It's a commentary as much as a joke.

Mr Hill, are you any nearer
a settlement with the employers

today than you were yesterday?

No. The fight is on.

There's no prospect as we see it
of a settlement being reached,

and this great assembly here today

proves conclusively
that the spirit of the workers

is solid and determined
to win at this great struggle.

Do you think...
(APPLAUSE)

It's really, at heart,
it's a class comedy.

It's about the management
and the workers,

with Windrush's aunt as, even
above that, the sort of upper class.

And it's very heavily built around
the sort of stock characters,

the sort of devious boss,

the union leader, who constantly
uses slightly too long words

that he doesn't quite know
what they mean.

They're all from a gallery
of British characters.

You can imagine them all
in cartoons, newspaper cartoons,

and you'd recognise them instantly,

the boss with the moustache,

the slightly dodgy ex-military type.

The workers constantly
having tea breaks.

They're all...
they all feel like a familiar...

gallery of British life.

That's all right
for the brass at head office,

they don't actually have
to deal with the workers.

But the personnel officer,
that's my job, God help me.

And I can tell you
they're an absolute shower.

A positive shower.But my
instructions, Major Hitchcock,

are to carry out a time and motion
study in every department.

Whose bright idea was that?

There is absolutely no question
that the Boulting brothers

took the baton of Michael Balcon's
Ealing Studios comedies,

and ran with it into the next era.

The Ealing comedies, of course,
characterised by wonderfully cosy

armchair anarchy,
but an anarchy it was, you know,

anti-establishment, comedies that
of course stood the test of time.

The Boultings took that anarchy
and just made it more jaundiced.

They had a more jaundiced view
of society

by the time that they got around
to making their great comedies.

One of the reasons is that their
own experiences in filmmaking

up to that point,
was that they had come across

all kinds of difficulties

involving unions,
communist infiltration,

management problems,
all sorts of things like that,

which actually had turned them
slightly politically.

And so they had a pretty sort of
bitter view

of the industry,
as well as British society.

And they were objective enough
to be able to sort of see it,

but clever enough to know that,

if they wanted to get
these messages across,

they had to be entertaining.

So they made a series of comedies

which basically targeted the sort
of great institutions of Britain,

the law, the Foreign Office,

but greatest of all,

industry and the unions.

And that's why, I think, by the time
they got around to making

I'm All Right Jack,
they were in the absolute prime

of their sort of satirical ideas
and how to express them.

Is he in?
Ah, good morning, Mr Kite.

Well, he's very busy, but I know
he is always pleased to see you.

Will you come this way?

The Works Committee to see you,
major.

Ah, come in. Take a pew.
Cigarette?

After due deliberation,
Major Hitchcock, the Works Committee

has had to call a stoppage
in response to our members' wishes.

Oh really?
Well, what precisely is the trouble?

The reference they made,
I'm all right Jack,

was a piece of military slang,
and it is supposed to have begun

in the Second World War
as a sort of a naval term

for when you're abandoning your ship

and you pull the ladder up
after you,

shouting to the men below,
"Sod you, I'm all right Jack."

It was this idea of,
at a moment of crisis,

the person who decides
that they're for themselves

and they're not
for the collective.

What the filmmakers wanted to show
is the attitude of looking out

for number one,
looking after only yourself

is permeating British society.

And so everybody in this film,
with the exception of one person,

is making sure that
they're all right.

There are numerous candidates for
Peter Sellers' finest performance.

The great actor comedian
was a chameleon,

disappearing inside the skin
of his characters.

But the answer is simple.

Fred Kite, shop steward
of Missiles Limited,

the factory at the heart
of I'm All Right Jack,

not only a razor sharp
political satire,

but an indelible slice
of post-war British life.

My colleagues here have instructed
me to put to you one question,

Major.
Certain, go ahead, my dear fellow.

Is it, or is it not your intention
to sack this man?

Sack him?
Of course.

I'm obliged to point out, Major,
that if you sack this man,

the company is in breach
of its agreement with the union.

But surely he's not a union member.

Correct,
but that is merely technical.

But didn't you say
that he was incompetent

and couldn't do his job properly?

We do not and cannot accept
the principle that incompetence

justifies dismissal. That is
victimisation.That's right.Yeah.

I'm All Right Jack was born
out of a rich comedy heritage.

The Ealing tradition was
drawing to a close in 1959,

but it had bequeathed
the concept of social enquiry

into a new generation of films.

Based on the novel
Private Life by Alan Hackney,

this is technically
a sequel to Private's Progress,

made by John Boulting in 1956.

In that wartime satire,
Ian Carmichael's lolly-gagging

Windrush, proves himself to be
less than officer material.

One of the things that is
interesting about it, is that,

officially, it was a sequel
to a film called Private's Progress,

and it shares
a lot of the same characters,

but the thing about
Private's Progress, was that

it was looking back to the war,
set in the war,

whereas I'm All Right Jack,
in a way,

is looking forward to the next
20 years of British life,

because that way of being,

in constant strikes, industrial
relations and the unions arguing,

that went on for another 20 years.

That went on right up until 1979
when Margaret Thatcher was elected,

specifically to put a stop to the
kind of world of I'm All Right Jack.

So, weirdly, it's...

almost a look ahead to the future,

as well as being
a look at Britain now, ie in 1959.

We're now inside what they call
the assembly line.

In the normal way
we wouldn't be able to shoot here

because of the terrific
noise of machinery,

which, as you can see,
is now stopped and dead.

Now this is Colonel Buckmaster,
who is the Public Relations Officer.

Colonel Buckmaster,
can you tell me

how long the lines have been
stopped?Yes, since last night.

Will it be, sir, before the stoppage
extends to the rest of the plant?

I'm afraid that will be tomorrow.

How many men will that lay off?
Approximately 15,000.

How official is this strike on the
part of the Brigs Farveys men?

It's completely unofficial,
the first the management heard of it

was at lunchtime yesterday,
when men went out to lunch

and didn't come back again,
which caused, of course,

the slowdown and eventually
the stoppage of the whole plant

because there was no work
for the others to do.

I'm All Right Jack picks up with
a demobbed Ian Carmichael's attempts

to join the upswing of post-war
Britain in the 50s.

Skewering both
political and working life,

the sequel follows
rival arms factories

scheming to raise the profit margin

on a deal to sell missiles
to the Middle East.

A plan that will involve
fermenting a strike

around the issue
of time management.

Well, Mr Mohammed, I'm afraid
there's a distinct possibility

that Missiles will be unable
to fulfil your contract.

But you are joking.

The peace of the Middle East
depends on it.

No, my dear fellow, I'm not joking.

Cox, perhaps you can
explain to Mr Mohammed.

Well, there's an engineering concern
that I happen to own.

I own the shares
and Bertie owns the tax losses,

only not in his name, of course.

The Britain that
I'm All Right Jack depicts,

is one that is...
has emerged, in a sense,

from the darkest shadow of the war,

and indeed people,
whilst they have...

All the people in this film will...
The characters in this film

will have served in the war,
they don't discuss it.

It's something that
happened in the past,

much as the country
had left that behind.

The country is battling
with a number of different things.

On the one hand,
consumer culture,

teenagers coming up with,
listening to rock and roll,

this whole sort of new Britain is
beginning to emerge on the streets.

On the other hand, Britain
is trying to understand its place

in the world. So, by the time
the film had come out,

we had just had the Suez crisis
where Britain had tried

to exert its old imperial power,
and failed dismally.

So there was a sense
that the old country,

the old muscle that Britain had
internationally, was decaying.

At the same time,
the society itself was changing.

So there's a sense of grasping
for what actually is this country

and what's the tradition
that we still have,

where are we going with this,
who can we trust?

And the film, really,
comes to the conclusion

that everybody is on the make now.

The consumer society offers
opportunities to make a quick buck

selling fast goods, or for instance,
in the case of I'm All Right Jack,

to sell weapons overseas,
literally to our former enemies.

They're selling missiles
to someone who is clearly

a reference to an Egyptian
army officer.

So post-Suez,
the factory in question

is selling missiles
to the Egyptians.

There's this sense that
the country is recovering

from its post-war bankruptcy
by selling everything it can

all the time, and, really,
without a sense of identity or pride

that it's trying to grasp at.

Handed a job by his unscrupulous
uncle Bertram,

an oily Dennis Price,
Carmichael's bumbling Windrush

will be thrown
onto the factory floor,

essentially to stir up trouble.

But the comic twist is that
he will be ostracised by both sides.

Because he proves to be too good at
his job of driving a forklift truck.

He begins as a fool,
and emerges as the voice of reason.

What the hell do you think you are
doing?Shut that bleeding door!

Go on, get off out of it, will you?
I do beg your pardon. I'm new here.

I should bloody well think you are.
If you bring those things back here

you get back up the other end,
that's where you ought to be.

You berk.

(FORKLIFT TRUCK POWERS ON)

I don't know, they're taking
on some proper charlies nowadays,

aren't they, hey?

Right, here we go again.

I find that really funny,
cos that's so true, you know,

that you only have to look
at British politics

in the last few years
to think that the idea

that you can drift out of Oxford
and do anything,

even if you have no experience in it
and no particular aptitude for it,

is a mistake
that we still make today.

And those are really funny scenes
at the beginning, I think,

when the character of Windrush,

one of the things
that's so funny about him is that

he's completely oblivious
to how rubbish he is.

You know, he genuinely thinks
that there's nothing to these jobs,

that you can just turn up
and just do them.

It's funny, cos it reminds me
of David Cameron,

who was asked why did he want
to become Prime Minister,

and he said, "Because I thought
I'd be rather good at it".

And that's precisely what
Windrush would say, you know,

why do you want to work
for this detergent company?

"Ah, I thought I'd be
rather good at it."

The brothers John and Roy Boulting,

who alternated
being director and producer,

were committed liberals.

They mixed drama,
including the great Brighton Rock,

with telling satires
of British institutions

such as the academia of Lucky Jim,

or the diplomatic circles
of Carlton-Browne of the FO.

With I'm All Right Jack, they paint
a cynical picture of 1959.

Across the spectrum of British life,

there was a fear
of escalating strikes,

even of revolution from below,

and of manipulation
and corruption from above.

Roy tended to be the producer
in many films,

and John tended to be the director.

However, that is not exclusive.

They were almost interchangeable
in a way that some of the actors,

I think it was Terry-Thomas,
actually, said, you know,

if Roy took off his glasses,

you had absolutely no idea
who you were talking to.

It was only the glasses
that actually would...

that they could distinguish
one from the other.

So...
And they had the same sort of ideas.

They were completely interchangeable
and they worked brilliantly together

because they understood film,

they understood the techniques
that they were using,

and they also understood
that they were looking at society

in a way that perhaps
hadn't been done before.

They had, strangely enough,

they evolved in the same way too,

in terms of moving from
perhaps...

the left, politically,

a little bit more to the right,

just as a result
of their joint experiences,

and because they had
experiences together,

that they actually
carried on evolving together,

almost as one unit.

As they moved into the 1950s,

they started using comedy
to make their point.

So they would take jabs
at British institutions,

for instance they had a film,
Carlton-Browne of the FO,

which was mocking British foreign
policy and the civil service.

But they always rooted it
in that idea of showing real life.

They used location shooting
as much as possible,

they wanted to anchor their stories
in a very real world.

The comedies would also have
a strong satirical edge,

and sometimes they would push
the comedy out

into the almost fantastical,

not quite fantastical as in a dream
sequences, but in terms of the plot.

They would exaggerate the plots
to make the point.

It was reductio ad absurdum.

They would get to the point
where they lionised a particular

institution to the point
where it seemed ridiculous.

In the case of I'm All Right Jack,
for instance, they used

mock industrial adverts saying
how wonderful British industry was,

which were very accurate depictions
of those industrial adverts

of the time, "British industry
makes great strides",

and then they would juxtapose that

with the real nature
of a British factory.

So reality, illusion,
comedy, satire,

these are all merged together
in a sequence of excellent films.

I am now nearing
the end of my journey.

I hope I still have
some services to render.

But in 1955, the advance
of time did to Churchill

what dictators, armies,
and war planes had failed to do.

He chose to surrender.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip
attended a formal dinner party

at the venerable statesman's
residence at 10 Downing Street.

Sir Winston had announced
the retirement at the age of 81,

an inspirational life of
public service that had spanned

the reigns of Victoria
and Elizabeth, was now at an end.

This is a changing Britain
under the satirical microscope.

The old empire has gone
with the war,

and the upper classes are plotting
to hold on to the money.

However, inspired by
the distant call of Karl Marx,

the workers are putting up a fight.

Oh, very good...

Dirty beast.

(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS)

Yes, here is another good
one to start on.

Collective Childhood
Factory Manhood.

Oh, it sounds fun.
Here, it's very descriptive.

It's all about how they run
factories in a worker's state.

However, I won't spoil it for you.

Have you ever been to Russia,
Mr Kite?No, not yet.

One place I'd like to go to, though.

All them cornfields
and ballet in the evening.

I wish I knew as much about it
as you do.

Ian Carmichael's Windrush
is a candid figure,

pawed by each side,

oblivious to politics,
immune to the class struggle.

He just wants to find
his place in the world,

and, in a sense, represents
the emerging British middle class.

He is also a parody of the
angry young man of the 50s,

finally stirred into denouncing
all sides of the argument,

though no-one listens.

Dad, tell mum I'll be in
late tonight, will you?

Very well, Cynthia. You on overtime,
are you?Don't be daft.

Going out west, dancing.

My daughter Cynthia works here
spindle polishing.

Really?

Ha, quite a job.

Because he has no idea
what's going on,

he is sort of used and abused

by both the top brass,
the management,

and the union workers,
although, strangely enough,

he develops quite
an interesting relationship

with Peter Sellers as Fred Kite.

Fred Kite is...

one of Peter Sellers' greatest
achievements as an actor.

In fact, it's his first
great achievement

as a fully-fledged actor,
as opposed to just a comic actor.

He didn't originally want to play
this role, he was rather reluctant.

He had done a film
with the Boulting brothers before,

he got a small role
in Carlton-Browne of the FO.

And when he was given the script
for I'm All Right Jack,

he didn't think it was funny.

It took all the Boulting Brothers'
sort of powers of diplomacy

to persuade him
that this was going to be funny.

It was a fairly sketchy character
in the original script,

but they gave him carte blanche
to create the character.

And...

Sellers went
right into deep research.

He started looking at newsreels
of the union leaders,

not just here,
but in the Soviet Union.

He started thinking about
how the guy would walk,

how he would talk,
what his language would be,

how he would dress,
and basically,

Sellers is responsible
for the character

that then emerged on the screen,
that has become synonymous

with the kind of petty
Napoleonic union leader

or a shop steward,
as we say,

who thinks of himself
as vitally important,

is an incredibly pompous little man,

and, yet, has power.
He does have power

because he can actually call
a strike at any time he wants to.

Mr Stevens, you're Chairman
of the Shop Stewards' Committee,

you have decided today
not to go back to work on Monday.

Why is that?

Well, the feeling by the mass
of the workers on an amendment

to our resolution
as a strike committee,

now a resolution being
to return to work on Monday,

the workers are so incensed,
they're so incensed by the fact

that they are not prepared to accept
that intolerable conditions

that are being placed upon them,
and are prepared to struggle

until they get certain assurances
from the Ford Motor Company.

Right, brothers,
have we all gathered?

My purpose in convening you
is to lay before you certain facts.

A few minutes ago,

I was handed this paper by a
representative of the management.

It purports to contain certain
timings made by the management,

which directly affect the rates
for the job that you are doing.

This is the first time that
this has been mooted to the works

committee, everything about it
constitutes quite definitely,

quite definitely, a definite breach
of the existing agreements

that exist between management
and the unions.

A diabolical liberty.
ALL: Hear, hear.

But it is Peter Sellers
who makes the film

like nothing he had ever done
before.

Kite hints at something real,

with his short back and sides
and toothbrush moustache,

a Chaplin of the factory floor.

Sellers is meticulous
in his creation of character.

Kite is gloriously humourless
and therefore very funny.

There is an air of tragic
pretence about it.

He calls for a Marxist Utopia
on a British industrial estate,

but at heart,
yearns simply for importance.

The film begins with a Peter Sellers

sort of elaborate colonel character
in a club, an old fusty club.

And this in a way
represents the old Britain.

And then appears much later
as a Trade Union official

from the new world, living a very
particular modern kind of life.

So Sellers, if you like,

represents the flip... He flips
in the way that society is flipping.

And there's something
significant in that choice.

The Boulting brothers made
a deliberate example of one person

flipping from one character
to another,

and therefore demonstrating
the way the world is changing.

Er, have you ever read
any of Lenin's works, have you?

No, I'm afraid I haven't.

That'll lighten your eyes for you.
Is he still on about Russia?

I'll tell you straight, it's all
we ever get to hear in this house.

The thing that we must mention
is of course that Fred Kite

is obsessed with the Soviet Union.

He is obsessed with Russia,
all things Russian.

He doesn't ever refer
to himself as a communist,

he says because, you know,

my politics are between
my conscience and the ballot box.

But he is obviously, in his heart,
he's a communist.

But he's got a sort of strange grasp

of what it is to be
in the Soviet Union,

and he sort of dreams
of this place where,

you know, full of cornfields and
then there's ballet in the evening.

You can see that the man is deluded,
although he's not malicious,

he's not cruel, he's just sort of...
sort of power crazed,

and completely deluded.

The Boultings are taking
a swipe at everyone.

Kite's workers are hardly heroic,

including such familiar
comedy figures as Terry Scott,

Kenneth Griffith, and Victor Madden,

they are portrayed as
work shy and devious,

as equally the target of the smug
meaning behind the title,

I'm All Right Jack,
as their self-serving bosses.

One of the delights of the film
is there's a gallery

of British comedy actors
who have all worked together before.

Boulting brothers know them,
and they are able to cast them

in roles that they just inhabit

without even thinking about it.

You have Terry-Thomas
as the sort of personnel manager,

who is kind of the liaison between
the management and the workers.

He has no respect for the workers
obviously whatsoever,

and very quickly delineates them
as shower,

"They are just like some shower."

And he recognises Windrush,

of course, immediately,
he sees his name on the card.

He says, "He was a stinker in the
army, and he's a stinker now".

But he doesn't really have...

He doesn't really have much respect
for the management either.

So when he realises that

what they're trying to do
with Windrush,

he's got this expression
of sort of, "Oh, crikey,

you really don't know what
you're getting into, do you?

There's John Le Mesurier,

as a very 50s thing called
Time in Motion Man,

which is sort of, in a way,

a forerunner
of management consultancy.

He's essentially there
to tell the company

how they can make their systems
more efficient.

So he's constantly hated
by everybody wherever he goes.

And, as a result,
he has this twitch,

the whole time,
which is very funny

because you know that
he's got this totally thankless job,

where he's basically there
to work out

just how lazy the workers are,

and how the management
can make them work harder.

And he knows that
everyone hates him,

and he's still...

John Le Mesurier
has this perfect face for that.

In a lovely, ironic sub-plot,

the authoritarian Kite
finds himself in thrall

to the new-found ideals
of his wife,

the always delectable
Irene Handl.

Weary of waiting upon her
egalitarian husband hand and foot,

SHE decides to go on strike.

While his daughter, Liz Frazer,
a factory worker, keen on Windrush,

will prove another thorn in the side
of the great socialist leader.

The film's satirical targets are,
in effect, everybody in the UK,

the way the country is changing.

So everything
is held up for mockery.

What survived with this film,

and what perhaps gives
this film its reputation,

is it's one of the first films
to pick the trade union movement

as an object of mockery and satire.

And that's because,
at this point,

the trade union movement is
part of the establishment in itself.

It is a powerful force
in the country.

If we were to make this film now,

we would look far more closely at
the deals the management are doing.

The management are up to the kind
of corrupt deals

that still feature in films,
dodgy arms deals,

you know, forcing workers
into particular forms of behaviour.

But in those days, the idea
that the trade unions had a force

and a power to play and had
their own level of corruption,

was socially real,
it was socially appropriate,

and also relatively novel
to depict on screen.

It had to be depicted carefully
because a lot of people

in the country, the audience,
the people who have paid to go

and see this film, would be
in work places, in trade unions.

You had to get it right, get that
mockery, that satire, spot on.

It's easier to lampoon, you know,

a foolish former major than it is

to make a joke about
someone's work mates

that they recognise
and laugh along with and at.

Opposite Kite
and his slovenly workers

are the cads
and bounders of management.

Dennis Price is the untrustworthy
factory owner Bertram Tracepurcel.

While Terry-Thomas is the twitchy
middle manager, Hitchcock.

In a rare, rakish tone,
Boulting favourite,

Richard Attenborough, has a whale
of a time as Sydney DeVere Cox,

head of the rival factory,
in cahoots with Bertram.

Here!
Where do you think you're going?

On strike, gov.
On strike?

What are you on strike for?
In sympathy with Missiles.

Sympathy?
What about a bit of sympathy for me?

Excuse me, Mr Cox?
Ah, shut up!

Don't know what that lot's
suddenly turned up for,

they won't see nothing,
the strike is solid.

Why don't you tell them to
ph-photograph something worthwhile?

Hello?
What's he come here for?

Set in an unnamed British city,
the exteriors of Missiles Limited

were filmed at the Flexilo factory
in Slough,

and the interiors
at Shepperton Studios.

It could be described as docudrama,

or indeed,
docu-comedy in style,

but there is great visual contrast
between the factory yard,

the mundane management offices,

and the plush clubs
where the plotting is done.

The fact that the film is set
in a missile factory is critical,

although understated.

It features as a sub-plot,
but the driving sub-plot.

It's the idea that moves
the whole film forward.

What is also showing is that Britain
is no longer portraying itself

as a military power
that can exert force.

It's now a military trader.
It sells weapons.

In this case, it's selling
weapons to the Egyptians.

Of course,
this is just after the Suez crisis,

where British troops and Egyptian
troops had exchanged fire.

So we are now selling a missile
to the Egyptian army,

who, for all intents and purposes,
who knew,

it could be used against British
troops in the future.

That's the way
we do business these days.

And you're a provocateur,
that's what you are.

No, no, Mr Kite.
You whited sepulchre, you.

Talked your way into the union,
wormed your way into my house,

and all the time you was a... you
was a fifth column in our midst.

I didn't mean to upset you
like this, Mr Kite.

Do you mind if I drive on into the
factory?Oh, no, you don't.

Come on.

(CROWD BOOING)
Fascists!

All right, go on in,
if you're going.

You filthy traitor, Windrush!

Judas!

What the bosses are trying to do

is exploit Ian Carmichael's
incompetence,

Windrush's incompetence,
for their own ends.

And, in fact,
it backfires on them

because his incompetence
creates this sort of

accidental whistle blower,

who, then, after a while,

becomes a national hero.

He is the one who eventually
turns up at the factory gates,

in a bubble car, no less,
and a bubble car of course,

was emblematic of the new era
of the 1960s.

You know, a proper bubble car too,
not the Messerschmitt one,

which was kind of, you know,
just incredible.

It was, the next one was the Mini,
you know,

but this was before the Mini.

So he's already
sort of looking ahead.

And he walks in and says
I've got to work. And he becomes...

He's sent to Coventry
and he becomes a national hero.

And the...

That gives him the power
in a funny sort of way,

although he doesn't realise it,
to actually change things.

"With gratitude for your fight
against the rising cost of living,

this gift comes to you
from five Cheltenham ladies

living on fixed incomes."

How very kind, Stanley.

Jolly kind indeed, Aunt.

Just listen to all that cheer.

(WOMEN CHEERING OUTSIDE)

How long have they been there,
Aunt Dolly?Hours, dear.

What a nation we British are
once we are stirred.

CROWD: (CHANTS)
..who are born of thee

wider still, and wider...

And the children
of Babylon are destroyed

and become an abomination
in the eyes of lasciviousness.

Three cheers for Mr Churchill
and Stanley Windrush.

Hip, hip, hooray!

Hip, hip, hooray!
CROWD: We want Stanley!

The two big sides in this film
are the management and the workers,

although around this, the Boulting
brothers put the government,

they put the media,
they mock tabloid press, you know,

they mock the way that
the country sees this conflict.

But the real conflict is
between management and the workers.

If you look at the script
and you look at who is mocked

and what they're mocked for,

both sides are equally venal,
equally silly.

What Peter Sellers brought to Kite

was so strong and so influential
and so recognisable,

that that became the stand-out role
from the film.

And so it, in a way,
it was seen,

it's become an example of a joke
about trade unionism.

But the script doesn't do that.
The script is pretty even handed.

It's just the brilliance
of Peter Sellers' performance,

that made people recognise something
for the first time.

It became this symbolic gesture
about the problems

with the trade union organisation
in the workplace.

I don't think that's
what the Boulting brothers

were intending to do. They weren't
making this an anti-union film.

It was the strength
of the performance

that made people
interpret it that way.

As the strike escalates
to a nation-wide scale,

Windrush will be invited
onto a television

discussion programme
called "Argument",

hosted by the actual
Malcolm Muggeridge.

As Windrush plaintively
calls for sense,

the programme,
and by association, Britain,

descends into total chaos.

The film caused a stir
on its release.

The left-wing press saw it
as an attack on the union movement,

while the right-wing papers
declared it as anti-establishment.

They were right on both counts,

and it became
the number one film of 1959.

Though more broadly comic,

here were the early stirrings
of the British new wave.

It's difficult to say how much

I'm All Right Jack
still means to Britain

in terms of the 21st century,
where we are.

Certainly as a snapshot of its era,

it is vitally significant,
no question about that.

Not just in terms
of the relationships

between various parties
involved here,

but also just in the way
of looking at the locations.

It's a snapshot
of a sort of a lost landscape.

(HORN BLARES)

(HORN STOPS)
(AGITATED CHATTER)

Essential problems,

which are industrial relations,

but beyond that,
human venality and greed

are still with us, and of course
they will always be with us.

People will always be looking
to find...

the next opportunity
to make a fast buck.

The only thing that's different,
is, of course,

that there are many, many, many more
zeroes on the end of the cheque.

I'm All Right Jack, is both
a historical political document,

and, terrifyingly, a very relevant
political critique

of the way that Britain is trying
to make its way in the world.

This is a film that says
to the audience at the end of the

Second World War, we don't really
know how to build our own...

consumer culture, we don't know
how to exert our military power.

The idea of a useless
missile company

is something that
you could make today.

Submarines firing off missiles
that don't work

is very much a part
of the British news today.

Governments walking out of debates
and falling out on television,

this is a part of today.

There's almost nothing in this film
that isn't about now, and then.

It joins together these two moments.

And both of these ideas are about
a country that's losing its way

in the world, a country
that's trying to understand,

after an enormous history
as one particular kind of country,

still, I feel,
the country hasn't come to terms

with what happened in the 1950s,
and the after effects of that.

We're still groping for
a particular sense of identity

and the comedy in that,
is very easy to find.

What the Boulting brothers note
and do very, very subtly,

is that there is also a deep,
deep tragedy too.

I think the film really
sets itself out

as a document of post-war Britain.

I think it does it very
deliberately, right from the start.

The jokes in the film
are on all levels, you know,

they're very sort of clever verbal
jokes, particularly from Fred Kite.

But there is also
some really broad visual comedy,

such as the moment
when Ian Carmichael

is being forced to eat
so many Num-yum samples,

that he's now feeling sick,

and the big machine,
which produces the Num-yum stuff,

is designed in a shape of two
big eyes and a big mouth.

And just at the moment he totters
off the screen to be sick,

the machine disgorges a load
of Num-yum fluid,

which is very, very clearly designed

to look like the machine
is being sick.

And it's a really, really big...

childish joke, and really funny.

Boil it down,
and I'm All Right Jack

is about the central political
divide of post-war Britain,

between socialism and conservatism,

or the working-class
and the upper class,

with the emerging middle class
caught between.

There's a film that spoke to us era,
but what is so telling

is that everything the Boultings
took to task in 1959

remains relevant today.

It was a premonition of a future
where nothing has changed.

Oh go on, be a sport!

I bet you're jolly good!
Oh, come on, Stanley!

None of us are terribly hot,
you know.

I wouldn't be any good, honestly.

Rubbish!
He's only just being modest.

Come on, ladies,
come and make him play.

(WOMEN LAUGHING)

Oh, no!

No, Father!

Help!

(WOMEN LAUGHING)

# I'm all right, Jack, I'm OK

# That is the message for today

# So count up your lolly,
feather your nest

# Let someone else worry, boy,
I couldn't care less

# You scratch my back
I'll do the same for you, Jack

# That's the message for today #

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