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Melody

Waris Hussein; UK 1971; StudioCanal Region B Blu-ray/Region 2 DVD (separate releases); 106 minutes; Certificate PG; 1.85:1; Features: interviews (Hussein, Alan Parker, David Puttnam, Mark Lester), stills gallery

Film: Reminiscing about his producing debut elsewhere on this disc, David Puttnam said that he always saw Melody as a period piece, but the tiny budget prevented it from being set in the 1950s when he was himself the age of the film’s only just pre-teenage protagonists. But nearly half a century later, the film has achieved these original aims, and wonderfully so, with some still highly recognisable Lambeth locations pinning down the early Seventies with forensic precision, and a huge background poster for Patton (1970) offering a then-unforeseen parallel, since both films were written by directors who had either not made a film at all (Melody’s Alan Parker) or had yet to achieve a major breakthrough (Patton’s Francis Coppola).

A gaggle of reassuringly familiar British character actors (Ken Barron, James Cossins, Ken Jones, Roy Kinnear, Sheila Steafel) plays assorted parents and teachers, but the focus is primarily on their offspring and charges, played by a commercially astute reunion of Oliver!’s Mark Lester and Jack Wild plus then-newcomer Tracy Hyde as Lester’s puppy-love interest Melody. The charmingly naïve treatment of their “elopement” to the seaside and their subsequent “marriage” in a makeshift ceremony attended by fellow pupils truanting en masse reflects the fact that this was originally intended as a children’s film, but it’s adults with Seventies memories who are likely to get the most out of it now. In particular, the canny decision to cast inner-city kids from various ethnic backgrounds gives the school scenes a much greater sense of verisimilitude than was the norm at the time – this was seven years before Grange Hill’s TV debut. The soundtrack is dominated by the Bee Gees, but from their soulful ballad period: Saturday Night Fever was also years away.

Disc: The new high-definition restoration makes the most of Peter Suschitzky’s sensitively muted colour scheme, while all four interviewees effervesce about their still considerable affection for the film, made when Parker and Puttnam were total beginners. Incidentally, the film bears its intended title onscreen; Puttnam affirms his loathing for the UK distributor-imposed S.W.A.L.K. (“Sealed With A Loving Kiss”).