"if...." meets "Old School"

if.... (1968, UK, dir. Lindsay Anderson) was one of those films which changed my life. I was about 16, and Toronto’s City TV, in addition to showcasing pioneering new wave music from the UK in shows like The New Music, also dedicated itself to screenings of quality films, uncut and uncensored in the late-evening. I had turned on the TV one night about halfway through the film, right before the scene in the Packhorse Café, and I was entranced, mesmerized, and finally horrified by the way the rest of the film played out. I then spent the next year reading the television listings looking for a movie whose description might match what I remembered seeing (these were the days before the internet, and I hadn’t yet discovered film compendiums), knowing only the second half of the plot and that it featured Malcolm McDowell (who I knew from A Clockwork Orange). Finally, about eight months later, I found a description that matched, and managed to capture it on VHS. That copy went into wide circulation at my high school, along with VHS copies of Rude Boy (1980, UK, dirs. Jack Hazan & David Mingay) featuring The Clash and D.O.A. (1980, USA, dir. Lech Kowalski) with the Sex Pistols and Generation X (not to mention vinyl albums by The Jam and The Undertones). This was subversive stuff to 16 year old Canadian boys in a Catholic school!

I've been waiting for if.... to be released on DVD for YEARS. And Criterion is finally giving it to us on June 19, 2007.If you haven't seen it, perhaps this mashup will intrigue you and you'll check out one of the most important films of the 1960s. If you’re a fan of if…., hopefully you’ll take this in the spirit in which it’s intended, and not as sacrilege. Now if Warner would only release O Lucky Man!….