Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Cecil Parker | ... | John Crane, M.A. Headmaster Of Melbury School / Headmaster | |
James Robertson Justice | ... | Robert Martin Affectionately Known As' Bow Wow' / Robert Martin | |
Ian Bannen | ... | Colin Crane The Headmaster's Son / Colin Crane | |
Agnès Laurent | ... | A French Mistress / Madeleine Lafarge (as Mlle. Agnes Laurent) | |
Raymond Huntley | ... | The Rev. Edwin Peake / Rev. Edwin Peake | |
Irene Handl | ... | Ex-Staff Sgt. Hodges A.T.S., N.A.A.F.I. / Staff Sgt. Hodges | |
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Edith Sharpe | ... | Matron |
Kenneth Griffith | ... | Mr. Meade | |
Robert Bruce | ... | Mr. Ramsay | |
Thorley Walters | ... | Colonel Edmonds Chairman Of The Governors / Colonel Edmonds | |
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Henry B. Longhurst | ... | 2nd. Governor (as Henry Longhurst) |
Brian Oulton | ... | 3rd. Governor | |
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Scot Finch | ... | Edmonds, The Head Boy / Edmonds (as Scott Finch) |
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Richard Palmer | ... | Milsom |
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Peter Greenspan | ... | Wigram |
The boys of Melbury Primary School are plunged into turmoil when the new French Master turns out to be a Mistress! Madelin Leforge's (the French Mistress) effect on the boys is swift and amazing. Suddenly everyone wants extra French Lessons just to glimpse the teacher in revealing shorts and bikinis. As discipline crumbles, a scandal explodes when the Head discovers the mademoiselle's mother was an old flame. Madeline must be dismissed to save further embarrassments. But the boys take strike action to stop this from happening in a breezy comedy with plenty of ooh la la! Written by Jenny Evans <J.Evans@uts.edu.au>
I'm more enthusiastic about this film than other reviewers here on IMDB and elsewhere. This is due to my having been at a boys' boarding-school (where, incidentally, James Robertson Justice had been educated) at the time that AFM was made and the boy's clothes - and some of their personalities - evoked memories. So did their excitement over the young lady arriving in their midst. Not that we were so monastic as Melbury: several of our masters had daughters, there were two nurses in the sanatorium (their bathroom adjoined one we used) and we were allowed into the town for an hour after lunch .
I still recall the very attractive sister who visited one boy and was chatted up by our senior prefect. Later the cover of the school magazine caricatured her at the bottom of a ladder leading to the prefect's room on the first floor. So another memory evoked by AFM when, in a reverse situation, Scot Finch clambers up to Madeleine's room ...
I thought that the actors all performed reasonably well and in the version that I saw (on the Talking Pictures TV channel) I was able to understand Madeleine (unlike a couple of other reviewers) and better so than in some actors in modern TV dramas.