Cheese Hoven Anyone who thinks Old British films are 'quaint' should watch this, one of the sharpest satires ever made. A finer film on industrial relations has never been made and I doubt could be made now in the current climate of intellectual dishonesty. The film makers do not take the easy route in blaming one party or another but holds them all up to scrutiny. The bosses, the unionists, the clients are all (rightly) shown as self motivated and cynical. Fred Kite is a character very familiar even in modern British politics (Bob Crowe still thinks and talks very much like him), with his hilariously Utopian views on the impoverished horror state of the USSR "fields of corn and ballet in the evening". The bunkum of the bosses is hardly less true and delightful to behold.

Spikeopath I'm All Right Jack is directed and produced by John and Roy Boulting from a script by Frank Harvey, John Boulting and Alan Hackney. It's based on the novel Private Life by Hackney and is a sequel to the Boulting's 1956 film Private's Progress. Returning from the first film are Ian Carmichael, Dennis Price, Richard Attenborough, Terry-Thomas, Victor Madden & Miles Malleson. While Peter Sellers (BAFTA for Best Actor) and a ream of British comedy actors of the time make up the rest of the cast.Looking to force a crooked deal, Bertram Tracepurcel (Price) and his cohort Sydney de Vere Cox (Attenborough) convince Major Hitchcock (Thomas), the personnel manager at the local missile factory, to hire Tracepurcel's nephew, Stanley Windrush (Carmichael), knowing full well that his earnest and wet behind the ears approach to work will cause fractions within the work force. Then it's expected that Bolshoi shop steward Fred Kite (Sellers) will call a strike that will see the crooked plan to fruition.Between 1956 and 1963 the Boulting brothers produced a number of satirical movies, I'm All Right Jack is arguably the finest of the bunch. Given that it's now admittedly a dated time capsule, for some of the dialogue would simply be shot down in this day and age, one has to judge and value it for the time it was made. The first and most striking thing about the film is that nobody escapes the firing line, this is not merely a device to kick the trade unions with {and a kicking they do get}, but also the government, the media, big industries and the good old chestnut of the old school brigade. All are in the sights of the Boulting's and the team. The overriding message being that all of them are out for themselves, self-interest and feathering of ones nest is the order of the times.Also winning a BAFTA was the screenplay, with that you still need the cast to do do it justice. Ian Carmichael was an undervalued performer in that he was an unselfish actor feeding set ups to his costars. That is never more evident than it is here where the likes of Margaret Rutherford, Irene Handl, John Le Mesurier, Liz Fraser & Victor Madden benefit greatly playing off of Carmichael's toff twit twittering. But it's Sellers movie all the way. Which considering he didn't want to do the movie originally, saying he couldn't see the role of Kite being funny, makes his turn all the more special. Studying for weeks labour leaders and politico types, Sellers, with suit too tight, cropped hair and a Hitler moustache, nails the pompous militancy of the shop steward leader. It doesn't stop there, couple it with the contrast of Kite's home life, where the Boulting's are slyly digging away at facades, and you get a two side of the coin performance that's a joy from start to finish.Very much like Ealing's sharp 51 piece, The Man In The White Suit, this is cynical, but classy, British cinema across the board. Throwing punches and with cheek unbound, I'm All Right Jack has razor sharp teeth from which to take a bite of the comedy pie with. 9/10

Michael Morrison This is frequently biting, often just funny, but overall it is more sad commentary.I am reminded of an Associated Press photo from about 1987. The Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, had just voted -- again -- to turn down the unionizing effort of the United Auto Workers. Employees were quoted as saying this was a victory for the workers.Writing in the spring of 2009, just a few days after Chrysler has announced its bankruptcy, and after meeting in my current geographical location, time after time, people who had fled Detroit carrying horror stories of union corruption and, face it, complicity by industry and management, I wonder if we will ever have civilization and a sound economy again."I'm All Right Jack" manages to paint a sadly accurate picture of a culture perfectly spelled out by the Stanley character when he throws the Marxian motto of "From each ..." into the face of the Kite character, the union steward -- beautifully played, by the way, by the brilliant Peter Sellers.What isn't spelled out, but ought to be obvious to any thinking viewer, is that the evils of the situation portrayed in "I'm All Right Jack" don't come from corrupt management or corrupt unions alone but from an acceptance of and institutionalization of the principle of coercion.Let me stress that one can watch "I'm All Right Jack" with your thinking process turned off and you can just enjoy the superlative acting and the funny situations, but I urge you to think, to understand there really is an important point being made, even if not one the makers themselves necessarily intended.

T Y I like me some British comedies from all over the spectrum (Kind Hearts and Cornets, Ruling Class, Python stuff, Lady Killers, etc.) but this ungodly, slow-moving plot wrings profoundly meager humor from its social commentary. At a factory the layabout socialist workers are one powerful faction and management is another. Each tries to get the upper hand, as an eager and "horrors!" productive new worker upsets the delicate balance. That's not a bad premise, but the movie is a neverending chain of lost opportunities. In the end it goes all Frank Capra when the new worker finds his conscience during a live TV show.It doesn't exactly move. At the 30 minute mark, the premise is still creakily coming together. After a very long first hour, I still hadn't even grinned once. Not only is Sellers not funny, but the script is humor free. If there are laughs in it, I'd need a team of British paleontologists to help me find them. I found this movie long and trying. 'The Mouse the Roared' is another promising comic concept executed horribly like this. If you had to watch one of the two, this is slightly more competent. A satire without a single laugh.