Review of I'm All Right Jack

During the 1977 strike at the Grunwick film processing plant in London,a large group of flying pickets led by Mr Arthur Scargill made the journey south from Yorkshire with the intention of preventing the "scabs" from going to work.They failed to do so,meeting firm resistance from the Metropolitan Police,during the course of which one of Mr Scargill's close cohorts was arrested.Once given bail he fled the country on the grounds that he wouldn't receive a fair trial in a police state and fled to Eastern Europe to seek sanctuary.Within a remarkably short time he returned to England,having experienced what living in a police state was really like.That sort of disillusionment I'm sure would have befallen Fred Kite had he ever visited the Workers' Paradise of his imaginings. "All them cornfields...and ballet in the evenings",he rhapsodises at a time when Stalin had only been dead four years.Shop Steward Kite is the sort of slightly potty Socialist whose antics gave birth to the idea of the "Loony Left" in British politics.With a Hitler moustache and an extreme haircut Mr Kite strides round the factory with a face like a bag of hammers followed by his equally surly minions,sowing conflict where there once was peace. Not that his fellow employees need much encouragement to down tools,indeed they seem to spend their days assiduously trying to avoid work.Nor are his employers much better,eternally trying to get the workers to do more for less money.Personnel Manager Mr Terry-Thomas is at his wits' end "You're an absolute Shower",he shouts despairingly to jeers from the workforce. Into this industrial maelstrom comes well-meaning incompetent Stanley Windrush(Mr Ian Carmichael) who has failed dismally at every other career path since leaving the army(see "Private's Progress").He is welcomed by the bosses (Mr Richard Attenborough and Mr Dennis Price as former army colleagues of Windrush) who see him as the right man to totally screw up the factory and leave it open to a takeover by nasty foreigner Mr Marne Maitland.Stanley soon comes to the attention of Fred Kite(Mr Peter Sellers) and his daughter(Miss Liz Fraser).Fred sees Stanley as a fellow intellectual,his daughter sees him as a prospective husband. Determined to offend everybody,"I'm all right Jack" succeeds admirably. There is no point in calling it "racist",it merely reflects the no doubt disgraceful attitudes of half a century ago,and it is an act of cultural vandalism to cut out parts that might offend the more delicate sensibilities of the early 21st century.Censorship is still censorship. Mr Sellers has been rightly lauded for his portrayal of the ludicrous self-important but pathetic shop steward.He could easily have turned him into a monster with no redeeming features ,a comedy villain,but he has succeeded in the much more difficult task of making Kite a man we can ridicule but at the same time feel some sympathy for,perhaps even a little affection.In one memorable scene he is matched blow for blow by Mr Terry- Thomas as circumstances force them to share a room.Accompanied by a superb trombone solo on the soundtrack(Don Lusher?)Mr Terry-Thomas picks his way gingerly through discarded clothing and unwashed cutlery,his moustache nearly drooping with unhappiness. Sam Kydd and Victor Madren are particularly telling as a couple of disgruntled workers,but the whole cast is a delightful I - Spy of the cream of British light comedy actors. Even if the premise that British industry is corrupt from top to bottom offends you,please remember that the Boulting Brothers did exactly the same axe job on the Army and the legal profession,and that should make you feel better.