Johnnie and his friends Bill (David Andrews) and Bert – a baby-faced David Hemmings – get into trouble racing their motorbikes along the Portway on the banks of the Avon and are banned from riding them which leaves them frustrated and deepens their boredom. This film is what made me a Ray Brooks fan ... we haven't seen him nearly enough over the years (though I gather he is joining one of the UK TV soaps (I'm writing this in Oct 2005)). The story of three teenaged tearaways Johnnie, Bill and Bert who find themselves at odds with society. Following a brush with the law they have a chance meeting with a local choirmaster who offers them a way of making good. Anneke Wills plays Mr Smith’s daughter, Anne, who has a teenage fling with Johnnie. His influence leads her to buy tight jeans which she further shrinks to fit in the bath. You’d think this scene a little ripe if it turned up in a modern period drama set in the 1960s but here it is charmingly authentic. Not many films used to be shot in Bristol, England in the 1960s. But Some People was shot entirely in and around the old city going out of its way to show the main characters in the very spots they would actually have been hanging about in real life as aimless teenagers. I know for certain because my parents were courting teens at that very time in that very place. I showed them the film recently (yes they're still a couple 54 years later) and the locations were very accurate to life as they knew it. My father actually worked in the Aircraft factory featured. The dance club in the film was the top spot for young Bristolians to cut a rug in 1962, a favorite place for them and all of their young friends (the front door manned by no less than Dave Prowse (not in the film unfortunately), the actor who made good as Darth Vader in a slightly better known film.) Bristol has changed but not so much that anyone familiar with it wouldn't know most of the locales.

This was an excellent movie for its time. It touched more closely upon the growing pains of young adults than many another.

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I first saw this film when I was 14 years old and have loved it ever since. It captured the atmosphere of the early 1960s perfectly and is a true snapshot of the times. Nice to see some familiar faces too – Harry H. Corbett as the dad was a surprise, but Hemmings and Brooks, both of whom went on to bigger and better things in the decade, are an interesting watch too. Watching this, you really can’t imagine David Hemmings as a brash London photographer just four years later in Blow-Up. Shows how much he grew as an actor working in this kind of stuff. Anneke Wills is a minor revelation too, not least when she’s in a bath full of hot water shrinking on a pair of Levi’s. The 3rd unit were filming it disappearing into the distance – it was a BIG moment in aviation history! Sadly; politicians are more mixed-up than they ever were. Now, with lunatics like Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt resolutely destroying the nuclear family, marginalising fathers into non-existence, and feminising the education system, whilst selling-off school playing fields for development and criminalising almost every infringement of law; a whole generation of disaffected kids has arisen who are tragically represented by this movie's modern sequel: 'Kidulthood'. Britain is now officially the worst place in the western world to be a kid. (It's also the worst place to be old.)

Still well worth a watch though, either in the restored DVD format (which is cheap) or the newly-released Blu-ray, which is a bit pricier.

Featuring Kenneth More

Karl Williams. "Some People (1962) - Clive Donner - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related". AllMovie. Kenneth More agreed to play his role for nothing apart from his expenses because he had no other offers around the time, and the movie was for a good cause: all proceeds were to go to the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme who commissioned the film [6] and the National Playing Fields Association. During filming he began an affair with one of the cast, Angela Douglas, who became his wife. [7] Donner called More's casting "our ace in the hole." [5] We had a script but to give the performances an authentic feel the entire story was ad-libbed. A fantastic local group called The Eagles – with Valerie Mountain singing the haunting lyrics (which Angela Douglas mimed to in the film). How beautiful we all were. How young…and how innocent! Singer Not the Song, The (1961) The Singer Not The Song is set during the 1950s in a small isolated Mexican village. Local Roman Catholic priest Father… Keeping the movie away from 'swinging London',the screenplay by John Eldridge reveals a very real down to earth quality about it,thanks to Eldidge keeping away from making the gang mindless rebels,by showing each of them to be confused,but well meaning,in their desires to find a good direction in life.Whilst some of the individual gang members sub- plots do feel over stretched,Eldridge smartly places the band dynamics right at the centre,which help to give the title a lively,jazzy edge.

Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7thed.). London: Paladin. p.938. ISBN 0586088946. Kenneth More (I played his daughter, Anne, in the film) gave up his fee for the cause and we also had many actors on the verge of making it big such as David Hemmings, Ray Brooks and Angela Douglas. Harry H. Corbett gives such a poignant performance as Johnnie’s father. There was a lot of goodwill for the making of the film – which was how we were able to film the breaking of the sound barrier for the first time. Those with an interest in public transport will thrill at the plentiful footage of the famous Bristol ‘Lodekka’ buses while aviation geeks will get a similar thrill from scenes of Mr Smith at work: when he isn’t encouraging young tearaways to play nicely together he is an engineer overseeing test flights of the Bristol 188 ‘Flaming Pencil’ supersonic jet. Then one night, while messing around in a church they’ve all but broken into, they are taken under the wing of Mr Smith, a local youth group organiser played by veteran British actor Kenneth More, who encourages them to form a pop group.

While Some People is clearly the work of a director finding his feet it is nonetheless an enjoyable drama about a teenager, Johnnie, played with charm and intensity by Ray Brooks, and his struggle to choose between straightening up or continuing a descent into delinquency. Made shortly before The Beatles burst onto the music scene, and as a result, Some People probably looked out of date almost immediately after its release. It’s now something of a curiosity piece, or a nostalgic piece of whimsy for anyone who happened to be a teenager during the early 1960s. Despite their 26-year age difference, Douglas and Kenneth More began an affair while working on the film, with More eventually leaving his wife and marrying Douglas in 1968. They remained married until his death in 1982. His anxieties and jealousy come to the fore as his friends embrace the step into the unknown territory of adulthood that Bill simply isn’t ready for. Band of Thieves (1962) Seven of the prisoners at Gaunstone Gaol have been encouraged to take up Trad jazz by a music-mad governor and…