Take a Girl Like You

Not many people seem to like this film and it maybe that Hayley Mills seemed rather young for her age at 24 because of course she had been a child actor. But also the film had been a book by Kingsley Amis ten years earlier and things were changing fast at the time. I still liked it though even if it is rather odd for Mills and Oliver Reed to be thinking of having sex as if they were not quite as young as they thought. Both are very good and even if some of those around her are really strange, like John Bird as a Labour MP and Sheila Hancock seems completely lost, although Rex Harrison's son Noel is rather splendid. Jonathan Miller had previously directed on TV the wonderful Alice in Wonderland (1966) and George Melly had written previously Smashing Time (1967) which would have been more appropriate for the time.

TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU is a filmed adaptation of a Kingsley Amis novel, directed by theatre figurehead Jonatha Miller. It's a slight and unwieldy affair that I found rather appalling in terms of subject matter - as cold and unyielding as a film gets when it comes to a relationship drama. Only the activities of the youthful cast lift this above tedium, with Hayley Mills in particular lovely and deserving better. Elsewhere, taciturn Oliver Reed still feels like a heavy from one of his earlier Hammer films, Noel Harrison is a real creep and gets too much screen time, Ronald Lacey is loveable, Sheila Hancock negligible, and John Bird sleazy. The ending in particular is a big a gut punch as cinema gets without resorting to death or violence.

Based on Kingsley Amis's 1960 novel, everything about this travesty is rendered hideously dated by it having actually been made at the wrong end of the sixties during that fleeting era when Hayley Mills & Noel Harrison were considered bankable stars; and well and truly put Jonathan Miller off ever getting involved with the film industry again. Amis's contempt both for the permissive society and for women in general, alas, comes through loud and clear. And why Oliver Reed is so charmlessly set on bedding the virginal Hayley when the lovely Aimi MacDonald is all over him is one of several uninteresting mysteries the film presents us with, such as how - with the possible exception of Sheila Hancock - such a good cast is ill-used.

Already out of its time when it was released, 'Take a Girl Like You' focuses mainly on Jenny Bunn (Hayley Mills), a young teacher hanging onto her virtue in pursuit of love, and Patrick Standish (Oliver Reed), a flash bohemian trying to break through her resolve. With a swinging soundtrack from the likes of the Foundations and Ram John Holder, this tale is slight but watchable. A good supporting cast - Ronald Lacey, Aimi Macdonald, Sheila Hancock, Noel Harrison, plus an early teaming for Johns Bird and Fortune, foreshadowing their head to head skits for Rory Bremner - helps this film to stay afloat, while Reed is the perfect charmer for the rather wet Mills. Not bad, but perhaps too hopelessly dated to work even as a quirky original. From a novel by Kingsley Amis, adapted by George Melly, and directed by Jonathan Miller.

Exceptionally slight and meandering comedy has Hayley Mills portraying a twenty-ish girl from Northern England who relocates to London to teach school, taking a room in a boarding house and getting pawed at by various randy men. Of course, being a determined virgin until true love sets in, our heroine keeps all the beggars at bay. Adapted from a novel by Kingsley Amis, this a sex comedy with no sex in it. The Swinging Sixties having passed, what we get here is a rather staid and starchy London, and one quickly loses interest in the character's predicament since her rigid stance fails to propel the slim plot (even though Mills herself is a lovely screen presence). Best performance is given by Oliver Reed as a confirmed bachelor eager to deflower the pretty lass--even if it be on her terms. A few funny moments, but lazily put together and nearly crippled by a terrible finish. *1/2 from ****