Operation Third Form

This is quite an enjoyable caper that sees a group of young school children set up a complex sting operation to trap Derren Nesbitt ("Skinner") and his boss George Roderick who have pinched their antique school bell - and have their sights set on a valuable painting too. It's all the more enjoyable to watch 50-odd years later when looking back on the days when nobody has a mobile phone: the boys use their ingenuity, bicycles, phone boxes, a pram and the good old London bus to keep tabs on their quarry - with codewords and a meticulously planned enterprise - ensuring that they can repatriate their bell and make sure their friendly local rag and bone man escapes the suspicions of the law. It's not an hour long, and I found that it flew by. Sure, the production is all a bit basic and the plot somewhat far-fetched, but as a kid I recall these Children's Film Foundation efforts fondly - and this one still deserves a gander.

I always enjoyed the films from the CFF.... and rewatching them now I still enjoy them.... this title is no different... the adult actors in these were always well known and some, like in this instance, had been in big Hollywood blockbusters as well as successful UK films and TV shows.... There was never a suggestion of these films being patronising or cheap, so to speak, indeed young people were also involved behind the cameras as well as in front of them and there were plenty of those youngsters who went on to have successful and respected careers in film and TV making .... It would be very dismissive to say that this film was simply a film for children as with so many of these CFF films this film is comparable to films made for and by adults so I would recommend watching this no matter your age.... One could even argue that the quality of these CFF films were better than those comparable 'adult audience' films and especially many of those so called quota quickies that were prevalent around this time....

Productions by the Childrens Film Foundation seemed to exists in a perpetual postwar time warp in which nice, clean well-behaved children work hard for their pocket money and foiled crooks; but the title attests to this instalment's endeavours to bring the brand into the sixties, with vivid photography by documentary veteran Jo Jago, a busy percussive score by Harry Robinson and wheezes like a tape recorder hidden in a pram and the use of call-boxes in relay by the kids to stalk villain Derren Nesbitt (probably the scariest adversary the little rascals ever had to deal with) as he bus-hops across North London before inevitably eventually ending up in the water at Regent's Park.

The prosaic use of buses is explained by pompous Mr Big, George Roderick (in the role the late Raymond Rollett would have played a few years earlier) because Nesbitt's car is "too easy to trace".

A late entry (1966) in the old-style, classic CFF films featuring London bombsites, scrapyards, near-empty streets and B&W photography. No cheating, bullying kids here-all the baddies are adults, especially Derren Nesbitt who, unfortunately for him, was perfect in nasty roles! Well, it paid his mortgage no doubt.

The photography is especially good and sharp, there is suspense throughout and the acting by all the kids is fine. The locations are fairly wide-ranging-Notting Hill, Regents Park, Highgate.... As mentioned by other reviewers, this is not some inferior, sub genre, but holds its own with many full length second feature films of the period.

The well-recognised Sydney Bromley-who specialised in tramps, eccentrics-has possibly his longest speaking role here as the sympathetic "Steptoe" character-complete with beloved horse!

And yes-the baddies have their obligatory dunking-in the Regents Park pond!