Some People.

The question asked in this early sixties film is whether a local youth club with its ping pong soft drinks and cosy church like atmosphere is enough to save three motorcycle lads from becoming delinquents. Its when Johnnie (Ray Brooks) and his two mates Bill (David Andrews) and Bert (David Hemmings in his first decent role) get banned from riding their bikes and who after their days work at the timber yard has finished end up at a loose end wondering the streets trying to keep themselves entertained without getting into more trouble. But its when they go into the local church and Johnnie starts banging out a tune on the organ, which obviously upsets the Minister, that they meet Mr Smith the part time organist and choirmaster who along with his attractive daughter Anne (Anneke Wills best known for her role as Polly in BBC TV’s Doctor Who) arrange for the boys to use the Church Hall to rehearse their rock-n-roll outfit, complemented by a couple of middle class lads from the choir and Bills girlfriend Terry played by the Carry On actress Angela Douglas. Gradually they are brain washed into taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme but Bills not keen, which in turn leads to tension between him and Johnnie. 

 

"The Band" 

A cross between 60's realism and the cheerful optimism of the Cliff Richard musicals Clive Donner's Some People (1962) is not only a look at the teenage culture of the early sixties, where alcohol was the working class drug of choice, but an advert for the virtues of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme for youth. When actor Kenneth More was asked to play Mr Smith he agreed to do so for nothing apart from his expenses because of his support of the DOEAS which the film promoted and that the proceeds would go to the Award Scheme and the National Playing Fields Association. It was during the filming that he met Angela Douglas for whom he left his second wife after 16 years of marriage. He then found himself virtually ostracised by the film industry until success in the BBC's 1967 adaptation of The Forsyth Saga made his talent and popularity impossible to ignore.

 

Ray Brooks with Mrs More to be Angela Douglas.

The film was shot entirely on location in Bristol. Songs for this semi musical were written by Ron Grainer and Johnny Worth and performed by the UK band The Eagles and singer Valerie Mountain.  Clive Donner, who went on to direct two other memorable 60’s films The Caretaker (1963) and Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1967), makes the most of his young cast with Ray Brooks worth a special mention. Without the obvious DOEAS propaganda this could have been a serious pre Beatles look at youth culture with the usual problems of not being accepted by middleclass society who at that time were scared of the power that working class teenagers were beginning to assert through high employment and money in there pockets. Instead we end up with a rather cozy look at the perceived youth problems of the time, so much better portrayed in other films of the period like the Free Cinema Movement that lead into the British New Wave and Basil Dearden’s social problem films like Violent Playground (1958).

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.

This romanticised look at 1967 Britain through the eyes of an awkward, spotty faced, suburban schoolboy has all the clichés familiar with this period.  Psychedelic credit titles, rock music from Spencer Davies Group and Traffic, fantasy sequences, dolly birds, and lots of Carnaby Street fashions, the odd chemical substance and of course free and easy sex! Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967), officially released on DVD for the first time by the BFI in September 2010 as part of its Flipside series, demonstrates the reason for some of the hype that has been build-up about the sixties generation.

Barry Evans, best known for his appearance in the Doctor series on the television between 1967 and 1971, plays Jamie the six former delivering groceries on a bike in Stevenage New Town with his mind firmly on the serious matter of losing his virginity. The focus of his attention involves five modern young ladies who are deemed sexually available and ripe for his seductive advances. Advances which become far more urgent when our budding stud finds out that his younger brother has already lost his virginity.

Jamie and his l sexual conquests?

That really is the crux of the narrative but Clive Donners film does give some interesting incites into the psyche of the sixties. For example the portrayal of Jamie’s family, resolutely working class with dad’s football pools and their accompanying silence at 5 o’clock Saturday teatime and mums with her curlers which seem permanently in her hair, but in their modern new town home few elements of traditional working class culture exist. Also Jamie’s quite at home mixing with all classes of people and not forgetting the era’s attitudes to sex.

Enjoyable, but corny, the film is based on a novel by Hunter Davis, famous for writing The Beatles first biography. It’s a first person narrative with a direct address to the camera by Barry Evans that is not quite up to standard set by Michael Caine in Alfie released the year before. Great use of colour and its non-London setting makes a real change. It was suggested by certain well known critics at the time of its release that Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush would hasten the decline of western civilisation, interesting thought?