Review of Rattle of a Simple Man

Very much a leftover from the 1950s - much the same as the football rattle itself.Indeed if you ever attended a match where football rattles were the weapons of choice for the supporters,you may well remember "Rattle of a simple man" as a pretty daring and racy movie for your local Odeon to put on.Forty five years on, when what former Manchester United captain Mr Roy Keane referred to as the "Prawn Sandwich Brigade" of Southern - based stockbrokers seem to dominate that great old club,simple rosette-wearing,rattle-carrying supporters like Mr Harry H Corbett(so named to distinguish him from the puppeteer and inventor of "Sooty" Mr Harry Corbett) are as extinct as "man of the people" footballers,both species victims of the greed that dominates the once fine old game. But in 1964 rattles were still de rigeur(I carried a claret and blue one to the Cup Final that year without seeming in the slightest an anachronism.) Whenever fans came en masse to London a visit to Soho was obligatory.I'm sure many a pimp's eyes sparkled when the lads - and it was always lads, were "up for 't' cup". Innocent Mr Corbett is egged on by his pals to go with tart (The beautiful and sexy Miss Diane Cilento).In a cross between the warmth of Priestley and the irony of Maugham the story unfolds very satisfactorily helped no end by two vital and moving performances by the leads. Because the Swinging Sixties had yet to be invented there is no sexual frankness,no bad language and no violence.Instead we have a character - based gently amusing comedy that we Brits used to do really well and consider nothing remarkable. Now,as a snapshot of a lost age of manners and morals it is priceless.