Its Great to Be Young (1956 film)

Plot

Mr Dingle (John Mills) seeks to interest his students in music in order to enjoy life, while the new headmaster, Mr Frome (Cecil Parker) believes Dingle is ruining the children's traditional education.

Mr Dingle's students come up with a way to raise money by playing to crowds in the street and persuade Mr Dingle to help them. When this fails they decide to jazz it up and bring in some younger kids to help which is a success so, with the help of one of the student's parents, they are able to buy new musical instruments.

However, when Mr Dingle ends up on the front page of the local newspaper, the headmaster locks the instruments up. The students manage to get them out of the locked cupboards, rehearse and put them back without anyone noticing.

Mr Dingle takes a job playing the piano in his local pub but he is spotted by one of the teachers who reports him to Mr Frome who fires him for it. The children protest Dingle being fired by leading a strike and a sit in.

Eventually, order is restored as Mr Frome relents and allows Mr Dingle to return.

Cast

Reception

The film was one of the ten most popular movies at the British box office in 1956.

BFI Screenonline writes, "It's Great To Be Young! has a fair claim to be not only one of Britain's first teenage musicals but also one of the most commercially successful of any musical made in Britain during the 1950s - it proved so popular that it allegedly caused riots in Singapore. Its virtues are those of many ABPC productions of its era, from the vibrant Eastmancolor cinematography to the immaculately-selected cast and even if some of the sixth-formers are aged in their twenties, they do sound convincing as teenagers."