{{Short description|1962 British film by Philip Leacock}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2016}} {{Use British English|date=March 2016}} {{Infobox film | name = Reach for Glory | image = Reach_for_Glory_film_Lobby_card_(1962).png | caption = Lobby card | director = [[Philip Leacock]] | producer = {{ubl|Jud Kinberg|John Kohn}} | writer = [[John Rae (educator)|John Rae]] (novel) | narrator = | starring = {{ubl|[[Harry Andrews]]|[[Kay Walsh]]}} | music = [[Bob Russell (songwriter)|Bob Russell]] | cinematography = Bob Huke | editing = [[Frederick Wilson (film editor)|Frederick Wilson]] | studio = Blazer Films | distributor = [[Columbia Pictures]] | released = {{film date|df=yes|1962|04||UK}} | runtime = 86 minutes | country = United Kingdom | language = English | budget = }} '''''Reach for Glory''''' is a 1962 British film directed by [[Philip Leacock]] and starring [[Harry Andrews]], [[Kay Walsh]] and [[Michael Anderson Jr]].<ref name="BFIsearch">{{Cite web |title=Reach for Glory |url=https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150032932 |access-date=3 April 2024 |website=British Film Institute Collections Search}}</ref> It was adapted by [[John Rae (educator)|John Rae]] from his 1961 novel ''[[The Custard Boys]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6b4005f6|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170621123919/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6b4005f6|url-status=dead|archive-date=21 June 2017|title=Reach for Glory (1961)|website=BFI}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.allmovie.com/movie/reach-for-glory-v107341|title=Reach for Glory (1963) – Philip Leacock – Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related|website=AllMovie}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yyqc0Qa6b60C&q=reach+for+glory+1962+literary+sources+in+film&pg=PA924|title=The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film|first=Alan|last=Goble|year=2011|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=9783110951943|via=Google Books}}</ref>
== Plot == A group of boys, evacuated during World War II from London to a coastal town, form a gang and play war games. Too young to fight in the war and afraid it will be over by the time they come of age, the group members, who are also in the school's [[Army Cadet Force]], initiate a battle with the local teenagers. Curlew, a local youth, invites an Austrian Jewish refugee with whom he has formed a close relationship to take part in the shenanigans. At first the Jewish boy, Stein, is scorned because of his "Germanic" heritage but is later allowed to join. When Stein runs off during a fight, the youths decide to give him a fake court-martial and execution, but real bullets are used by a freak mistake and Stein is killed.
== Cast == * [[Harry Andrews]] as Capt. Curlew * [[Kay Walsh]] as Mrs. Curlew * [[Michael Anderson Jr]] as Lewis Craig * Oliver Grimm as Mark Stein * Martin Tomlinson as John Curlew * Freddie Eldrett as Willy Aldrich * James Luck as Michael Freen * John Coker as Peter Joy * [[Michael Trubshawe]] as Maj. Burton * [[Arthur Hewlett]] as vicar * [[Cameron Hall (actor)|Cameron Hall]] as headmaster * [[Allan Jeayes]] as Crabtree * [[Richard Vernon]] as Dr. Aldrich * [[Russell Waters]] as Mr. Freeman * [[Patricia Hayes]] as Mrs. Freeman * [[George Pravda]] as Mr. Stein * [[John Rae (educator)|John Rae]] as Lance Freeman * [[Alexis Kanner]] as Steven * Peter Furnell as Arthur Chettle * John Pike as Felix * Melvin Baker as Chettle's Lieutenant
== Critical reception == ''[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]]'' wrote: "The harm which the chauvinistic military propaganda necessary to sustain even the most righteous cause can have on unsophisticated minds is demonstrated with dramatic economy in this adaptation from John Rae's much-praised novel. By deleting most of the author's side remarks on religion and patriotism and his social comment, including a superfluous ironic epilogue, it concentrates the better on this single theme from which so many more criticisms of the death-or-glory ethos follow. Yet even after some inevitable bowdlerisation, the film's producers had difficulty in finding a British distributor for a work where there is nothing coy or quaint about the children or their war games, little humour and that often coarse or bitter, and no conventional sex, only devotion to one apparently still disturbing message. The naturalness of the boys' playing is a further tribute to the patience and sensitivity of Philip Leacock when handling young actors. Unfortunately the two main adult characters, the Curlew parents, become pasteboard types when taken from page to screen, and the presence of a conscientious objector son seems just too pat a device. The narrative also skips over several significant topics, such as the upsetting effect of parental rows on the younger son, the attitude of the pupils to Mark's teacher father, and the ease with which Craig's gang accept Mark, whom they have at first ferociously snubbed. Better shaping of the script might have made the film even more compact and incisive than it already is."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1962 |title=Reach for Glory |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1305830734 |journal=[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]] |volume=29 |issue=336 |pages=169 |id={{ProQuest|1305830734}}}}</ref>
The ''[[New Statesman]]'' wrote:"Sited on John Rae's novel, ''The Custard Boys'', the ramshackle result is strongest when it glares at the beastliness and affections of undirected youth, the animal years of adolescence. The kids, sent from London to a Suffolk village, hunt down cats on bicycles and, ultimately, a gentle young Jewish refugee. Some of this comes over forcibly enough to be affecting (Oliver Grimm and Martin Tomlinson are well directed as the principal children), but too much of the surround wavers: not just anachronistic TV aerials but uncertain amateurism from the other juveniles and dread lines dealt out to such persevering adults as Harry Andrews and Kay Walsh. Where, oh where, is [[Peter Brook]]'s ''[[Lord of the Flies (1963 film)|Lord of the Flies]]'' and will it catch the real, rampaging image of cruel boyhood that this mostly blurs?"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Coleman |first=John |date=6 July 1962 |title=All Sorts |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1306916646 |journal=[[New Statesman]] |volume=64 |pages=752 |via=ProQuest}}</ref>
''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' wrote: "Despite its worthy intentions, this fails to hit its target cleanly. It looks at war through the eyes of a bunch of London youngsters evacuated to the country during the last World War. ...These are the ingredients of a screenplay which is never quite decisive enough. ... Bob Huke's camerawork is sound and the location sequences are well portrayed. But the overall effect is of a good idea gone wrong through too many muddled motives battling against each other. It never knows what it wants to say, and gives up on the attempt."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=14 November 1962 |title=Reach for Glory |volume=228 |issue=12 |pages=7 |id={{ProQuest|1032415912}} |magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]}}</ref>
==Accolades== The film won a Silver Sail award at the 1962 [[15th Locarno Film Festival]],<ref>{{Cite journal |date=13 August 1962 |title='War Hunt' Given Award At Locarno Festival |journal= |volume=81 |issue=17 |pages=E-4. |id={{ProQuest|1670978774}} |magazine=[[Boxoffice Pro|Boxoffice]]}}</ref> and received the United Nations Award "for the best Film embodying one or more of the principles of the [[United Nations Charter]]" at the 1963 [[British Academy Film Awards|BAFTAs]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Film Awards – 1962 Results |url=https://www.bafta.org/awards/film/?award-year=1963 |access-date=11 November 2025 |website=BAFTA}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{IMDb title|id=0056397|title=Reach for Glory}} {{Philip Leacock}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reach For Glory}} [[Category:1962 films]] [[Category:Films based on British novels]] [[Category:British black-and-white films]] [[Category:Films directed by Philip Leacock]] [[Category:Columbia Pictures films]] [[Category:British war drama films]] [[Category:Films set on the United Kingdom home front during World War II]] [[Category:1962 English-language films]] [[Category:1962 British films]] [[Category:1960s war drama films]]