The System (1964)

A lot of fun.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Randy British lads chase available birds around the seaside; avid shutterbug Oliver Reed 'collects' young lovelies, but may have found the girl who has won his heart and not just his libido. Directed by Michael Winner, photographed by Nicholas Roeg, and starring a somewhat-green yet still charismatic Reed, "The Girl-Getters" (a.k.a. "The System") turns out to be a just-OK drama about would-be jaded boys and girls contemplating sex (the hunt for a willing girl seems to be more exciting to the guys than the actual conquest). It's hard to get an accurate reading on the youthful Oliver Reed: his heavy lids and soft, persuasive bedroom voice ooze false sincerity--but when put on the spot by the teasing model who sort-of fancies him, he suddenly becomes a deadly serious grown-up contemplating his feelings. The rock & roll music and pre-Swinging London fashions (and morals) are interesting, but Winner's quasi-documentary style is scattershot, and the plot doesn't gather much momentum. *1/2 from ****

aka THE SYSTEM. Michael Winner's early film is probably his best. A group of young Brits (mostly men, but a few women as well) play the field at a beach resort, looking for sex and occasionally for real love. Oliver Reed is Tinker, a seaside shutterbug/romeo who's horrified to find that he might actually be falling in love. This is very much a film of its time & place, when little related to sex could really be examined on the screen. Winner & screenwriter Peter Draper successfully weave together several stories, some charming, some sad and a lot of it very funny. The cinematography by Nicholas Roeg is great and the acting is all first rate. Reed commands the screen in this early role & Jane Merrow, Barbara Ferris, and a very young David Hemmings are in it too. Harry Andrews plays Reed's strict but somehow infinitely patient boss. The catchy theme song is by The Searchers.

A blast from the past for those young in the early 60s is the belated DVD release of THE SYSTEM (US Title: THE GO-GETTERS) made in 63 and released in 64 - when I saw it aged 18 when it would have played here in the UK for a week on release as part of a double bill and then promptly vanished without trace until I saw the DVD yesterday. It comes with a nice 8 page booklet too setting the film in context which is a model of its kind, if only more DVD re-issues followed suit! The film directed by Michael Winner with marvellous black and white photography by Nicholas Roeg is set in one of those English seaside towns following a gang of young men, led by the then very charismatic Oliver Reed, and their amorous pursuits over the summer and is actually a perfect compendium of European cinema trends of the time - there are Antonioniish moments (the tennis game here has a real ball) and it ends like LA DOLCE VITA in a Felliniesque dawn at the beach as the disillusioned characters realise the summer is over. The script by Peter Draper anticipates elements of DARLING and BLOWUP.It sports of course a great cast of English young players of the time (Barbara Ferris, Julia Foster, Ann Lynn, John Alderton) as well as reliables like Harry Andrews. Of the young cast David Hemmings (rather in the background here) would two years later personify the 60s when chosen by Antonioni for his lead in BLOWUP. Jane Merrow (Hemmings' girlfriend of the time, and a replacement for Julie Christie who was doing BILLY LIAR) is perfect as Nicola the rich girl whom Reed falls for but she plays the game better than he does. I got to meet her myself once ...Winner of course may be rather a figure of fun now, one forgets that in the 60s before those DEATH WISHES etc his films caught the moment as well as any by Richard Lester, Losey, Schlesinger or the underrated Clive Donner, with titles like THE JOKERS and I'LL NEVER FORGET WHATSHISNAME where Reed was meant to be his character from THE SYSTEM five years later.In all its a perfect early 60s movie full of sounds and faces and the mood of that time before the 60s happened. For anyone interested in English cinema or remembers the era, its a real pleasure to see again 40+ years later !

You might think that by 1964 the world was all swinging sophistication, but no it was like this, I remember. I had recently started working, in a bank. It was hand written ledgers and an outside toilet! Yep, life revolved a fair bit around getting girls and then making sure you didn't get them pregnant and then 'having to get married'. Everyone is s bit too old here, of course, although David Hemmings looks like a little angel. Oliver Reed puts in a good performance as the leader although it's hard at the end to take his more introspective ponderings. Great direction by Michael Winner, there not many people have said that, and the movie speeds along with some excellent sequences, especially the wedding celebration on the beach, played more like a wake. Winner is an under rated director, he did a couple of others of this ilk, then I like his Innocents and there is Death Wish. I liked the hated Death Weekend but in general his career went downhill and it stops people giving the earlier films a chance. Well worth watching, if only to appreciate that the mid 60's in Britain were still much like the 50's, except with teenagers.