The Happiness Patrol

"Some People" (1962)
Clive Donner
Network, DVD, UK

Despite what it's misleading trailer would have you believe, a trailer that makes out this British "musical" to be something akin to "The Wild One U.K.", this film is ultimately little more than crude propaganda for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards youth scheme.

That said, despite a story obviously steeped in the UK class system, filled with stereotype characters and tropes (regretful father looking back on a youth he'll never again experiece, angry young loner, token black who doesn't say or do much) and side plots that go nowhere (the business with the experimental jet plane, don't ask, being the obvious example) this is still an engaging 90 minutes. Shot it seems entirely on location in and around Bristol, with it's rear loader "Corporation" buses, coffee shops, roller rinks, teens lusting over newsagent windows full of (not so dirty) dirty magazines, people openly smoking everywhere, this movie's worth a watch as a time capsule of not so swinging life in early-60's Britain.