One of the key British films of the 1960s, Lindsay Anderson’s If . . . is a savage satire of English public school life that struck a very resonant chord in the year of student uprisings. Its image of the rebellious public schoolboy Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell, terrific in his debut film role), armed to the teeth on the chapel roof, became a treasured icon for disaffected youth. If . . . rails against the debilitating class system and, winding its exhilarating way between black-and-white and colour sequences, it exposes hypocrisy in school, church and the military. It was a timely film, with shooting starting just two months before the events of May ’68 in Paris.