Take a Girl Like You (1970)

Take a Girl Like You: Directed by Jonathan Miller. With Hayley Mills, Oliver Reed, Noel Harrison, John Bird. Young Jenny Bunn (Hayley Mills) heads to the South of England to start a new career as a school teacher. Even before she has had a chance to settle in she meets Patrick Standish (Oliver Reed), one of the local “lads”. Within a short time, she has her hands full when several of the local boys take a liking to her. But who will be the lucky one who wins her affections?

“Take a girl like Hayley Mills, Britainu0026#39;s professional virgin for much of her career, and so who better to play the part of Jenny Bunn, the new girl in town who has yet to have her cherry popped. Barely has she got out of the taxi before sheu0026#39;s accosted by local lothario Patrick (Oliver Reed), slavering at the chops at the prospect of fresh meat. Heu0026#39;s as slimy as slime can be but you wonder if the (male) writers see him this way, or whether they regard him as a kindred spirit. The narrative proceeds along a familiar will-she, wonu0026#39;t-she path, with less than hilarious consequences.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eYou donu0026#39;t really expect Dr Jonathan Miller, Kingsley Amis and George Melly to come up with a feminist tract, but youu0026#39;d think they would be capable of producing better dialogue rather than the terrible twaddle they peddle here; e.g. u0026quot;donu0026#39;t blow your cool over Patrick, dinner will be groovyu0026quot;. To add to the grief thereu0026#39;s the usual line-up of British u0026#39;character actorsu0026#39; hamming it up like mad, turning it into a kind of Carry On Chastity, but without the laughs. The source novel by Amis was written in the 50s but the film, made in 1970, updates this only stylistically. It didnu0026#39;t seem to occur to anyone that this would make it seem even more anachronistic than it was when the story was first published”