Directed by John Boulting, Frank Launder, David Lean, Robert Hamer, John Schlesinger
Starring: Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, Ian Carmichael, Alastair Sim, Terry-Thomas, Janette Scott, Charles Laughton, John Mills, Margaret Rutherford, Peter Sellers, Richard Attenborough, Brenda De Banzie
Contributors: Joseph Janni, Keith Waterhouse, Willis Hall, Richard Rodney Bennett, Denys Coop, Hal E. Chester, Patricia Mayes, John Addison, Erwin Hillier, David Lean, Norman Spencer, Wynyard Browne, Malcolm Arnold, Jack Hildyard, Sidney Gilliat, Stephen Harrison, Frank Launder, Mario Zampi, John Dighton, Mischa Spoliansky, Stanley Pavey, Roy Boulting, Frank Harvey, Alan Hackney, John Boulting, Ken Hare, Max Greene
Studio: StudioCanal
Genre: Feature
Main Language: English
Region: Region 2
Release Date: 14 Dec 2020
Originally Issued: 1963
No of Discs: 5
BBFC Cert: (PG) Parental Guidance.
Run Time: 469 minutes
Description
Collection of classic British comedies. In 'Billy Liar' (1963) undertaker's clerk Billy (Tom Courtenay) escapes his dreary small-town existence by living in a fantasy world where he realises his ambitions. When his job, unsympathetic working-class family and two fiancées threaten to become too much, he meets fashionable Liz (Julie Christie), who offers him his one chance for real escape.
In 'School for Scoundrels' (1960) Henry Palfrey (Ian Carmichael) is one of life's losers. Despised and disregarded at work, his prospective girlfriend April (Janette Scott) is whisked from under his nose by charming bounder Raymond Delauney (Terry-Thomas). In desperation, Henry enrols at Stephen Potter (Alastair Sim)'s College of Lifemanship, where he gradually learns how to get one up on the other fellow.
In 'Hobson's Choice' (1954) Lancashire bootmaker Henry Horatio Hobson (Charles Laughton) keeps a tight rein on his three daughters, until his eldest, Maggie (Brenda De Banzie), marries his assistant Willie Mossop (John Mills) and sets him up in his own bootmaking firm. To Hobson's consternation, Willie soon becomes his father-in-law's main business rival. In 'The Happiest Days of Your Life' (1950) Nutborne is an all-boys school and content to stay that way, but after an evacuation of local private all-girls school, St.
Swithins, the two educational establishments must find a way to co-exist as a battle of the sexes commences. A power struggle between Nutborne's headmaster Wetherby Pond (Sim) and St Swithins' headmistress Muriel Whitchurch (Margaret Rutherford) inevitably takes place, leading to much silliness and mayhem. Finally, in 'I'm All Right Jack' (1959), upon leaving the army, upper-class twit Stanley Windrush (Carmichael) takes a job in a missile factory.
Before long he has inadvertently started a national strike, which is subsequently mishandled by everyone involved.
Special Features
