Brilliant and touching

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

(64%) A superbly watchable classic British comedy that may dabble in silliness from time to time, but there's very few films from this era that are more fun. The cast is filled with some of the better performers of the time with the always very good Alastair Sim as the essentially the headmaster of this school for cheats, the perfectly cast rival Terry-Thomas, with the ideally good Ian Carmichael in the lead role. Memorable scenes involve the now classic wreck of a car sold by some dodgy dealers, and the very fun "hard cheese old boy" tennis sequences. Anyone fond of classic comedy should without doubt give this a look.

Ian Carmichael is always getting the short end of the stick and feeling inferior to people. He finds out about a school that will boost your self-esteem. Enter April, a lovely lady, he initially bumped into and made a somewhat goofy impression. He tries to take her out. But his reservation was all a misunderstanding, and then Terry-Thomas shows up with all his usual charming flair, saying they're his guests but making Ian pay and monopolizing all of April's attention. From then on, Terry considers her his girl. But, when Ian goes to the school, things change. The founder and teacher of the school is Mr. Potter (the name of the author of the books from which this is based), played by Alistair Sim, who gives a very understated performance. By way of manipulative tricks, one can maneuver people and control conversations and situations so that he comes out on top of everyone, in other words as Alastair says,"to be one up on your fellow man. After all, there's you and then there's everyone else." In the beginning, Terry was in control and was beating Ian in a game of tennis and Terry keeps repeating "Hard Cheese" whenever Ian's serve fails to get over the net, meaning of course, oh, bad luck, but its constant use gets on Ian's nerves and I've never seen a more hilarious tennis match in my life, but later on they have another match. This time, Ian makes him wait and in the process gets Terry totally frustrated and discombobulated even before they get there. Then there's Dennis Price who sold him a clunker of a car, but after Ian's class, he's learned a thing or two about dealing with these salesman. But will love win out for Ian and April? Watch and see, and learn. "School for Scoundrels" is 90 minutes and is one of the best comedies I've seen in a long time, one that will leave you feeling good long after and make you keep repeating to yourself, hard cheese, and laughing all day, and with Terry-Thomas in his element and never better, no one loses.

I give 'School for Scoundrels' a 9 out of 10 as punishment for the ending, where good triumphs over lifemanship. Terry-Thomas and Ian Carnmichael are always enjoyable, and of course this is the Golden Age of British (cinema) Comedy; but this is really Alastair Sim's movie, in my view. If you've ever seen a St Trinian's film, or 'A Christmas Carol,' you'll know what I mean. The initial interview between Mr Potter and Henry Palfrey is a small masterpiece, especially where Mr Potter (Sim) asks the oblivious Henry if he wouldn't agree that 'this round goes to me.' AS's (deliberately?) uneven voice, malevolent eyes and feline movements cannot be duplicated. I first saw this movie at the age of nine or ten when it was released, and remember enjoying Terry- Thomas most of all. Watching it again after a half-century I am struck by how astonishingly pretty Janette Scott is.

A classic, (and very, very funny) British comedy that seems to have slipped through the net, (despite having been picked up and remade last year with Billy Bob Thornton). Aficianados, of course, love the film with a passion and for good reason since it represents a high point in the careers of Ian Carmichael, Terry-Thomas and director Robert Hamer, (sadly this was the last thing Hamer did).It's based on the Oneupmanship books of Stephen Potter, in themselves classics of British humour, and here Potter is played by the great and inimitable Alastair Sim, though Sim takes a back seat in this one. Surprisingly, the writers Hal E Chester and Paricia Moyes, who adapted Potter's books, have managed to pull together something of a coherent plot rather than just a series of sketches as initially nerdy Carmichael starts putting Sim's Dark Arts into practice as he goes head-to-head with the dastardly Thomas for the virtue of Janette Scott. Anyone who has ever wondered what the point of Terry-Thomas was need look no further than here. He's a comic fireball and he ignites every scene he's in. Seek this one out.