Lord of the Flies (1963 film)  

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Lord of the Flies is a 1963 British drama film based on William Golding's 1954 novel of the same name about 30 schoolboys who are marooned on an island where the behaviour of the majority degenerates into savagery. It was written and directed by Peter Brook and produced by Lewis M. Allen. The film was in production for much of 1961, though the film did not premiere until 1963, and was not released in the United Kingdom until 1964. Golding himself supported the film. When Kenneth Tynan was a script editor for Ealing Studios he commissioned a script of Lord of the Flies from Nigel Kneale, but Ealing Studios closed in 1959 before it could be produced.

The novel was adapted into a movie for a second time in 1990; the 1963 film is generally considered more faithful to the novel than the 1990 adaptation.

Plot

A group of schoolboys is evacuated from England following the outbreak of an unidentified war. Their aircraft is shot down by briefly-glimpsed fighter planes and ditches near a remote island.

The main character, Ralph, is seen walking through a tropical forest. He meets a chubby, bespectacled, intelligent boy who reveals his school nickname was Piggy, but asks that Ralph not repeat that. The two go to the beach where they find a conch shell, which Ralph blows to rally the other survivors. As they emerge from the jungle, it becomes clear that no adults have escaped the crash. Singing is then heard and a small column of school choir boys, wearing dark cloaks and hats and led by a boy named Jack Merridew, walk towards Ralph and Piggy.

The boys decide to appoint a chief. The vote goes to Ralph, not Jack. Initially, Ralph is able to steer the boys (all of whom are aged between about six and fourteen) towards a reasonably civilised and co-operative society. The choir boys make wooden spears, creating the appearance that they are warriors within the group. Crucially, Jack has a knife. Ralph, Jack, and a choir boy named Simon go off to explore, and find out they are indeed on a deserted island. The boys have another assembly where Ralph tells the boys to make a fire.

The boys build shelters and start a signal fire using Piggy's spectacles. With no rescue in sight, the increasingly authoritarian and violence-prone Jack starts hunting and eventually finds a pig. Meanwhile, the fire, for which he and his "hunters" are responsible, goes out, losing the boys' chance of being spotted from a passing aeroplane. Piggy chastises Jack, and Jack strikes him in retaliation, knocking his glasses off, and breaking one lens. Ralph is furious with Jack. Soon some of the boys begin to talk of a beast that comes from the water. The next day, twins Sam and Eric see something land on the mountain, and they tell the boys it's another beast. All the boys except Piggy and the littluns go searching for it. Ralph, Jack, and another boy named Roger continue on to the top of the mountain and see something move. The boys all run away. The next day, Jack, obsessed with this imagined threat, leaves the group to start a new tribe, one without rules, where the boys play and hunt all day. Soon, more follow until only a few, including Piggy, are left with Ralph.

Events reach a crisis when Simon finds a sow's head impaled on a stick, left by Jack as an offering to the beast. He becomes hypnotized by the head, which has flies swarming all around it. Simon then climbs the mountain and sees that what the other boys thought was a beast is actually the dead body of a parachutist. Simon runs to Jack's camp in an attempt to tell them the truth, but the frenzied boys in the darkness mistake him for the beast, and beat him to death. Piggy defends the group's actions with a series of rationalisations and denials. The hunters raid the old group's camp and steal Piggy's glasses. Ralph goes to talk to the new group using the still-present power of the conch to get their attention. However, when Piggy takes the conch, they are not silent (as their rules require) but instead jeer. Roger pushes a boulder off a cliff which falls on Piggy, killing him and crushing the conch. Piggy's body falls into the ocean and gets washed away.

Ralph hides in the jungle. Jack and his hunters set fires to smoke him out, and Ralph staggers across the smoke-covered island. Stumbling onto the beach, Ralph falls at the feet of a naval officer who stares in shock at the painted and spear-carrying savages that the boys have become, before turning to his accompanying landing party. One of the youngest boys tries to tell the officer his name, but cannot remember it. The last scene shows Ralph sobbing as flames spread across the island.

Cast

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  • James Aubrey as Ralph
  • Tom Chapin as Jack
  • Hugh Edwards as Piggy
  • Roger Elwin as Roger
  • Tom Gaman as Simon
  • David Surtees as Sam
  • Simon Surtees as Eric
  • Nicholas Hammond as Robert
  • Roger Allan as Piers
  • Kent Fletcher as Percival
  • Richard Horne as Lance
  • Timothy Horne as Leslie
  • Andrew Horne as Matthew
  • Peter Davy as Peter
  • David Brunjes as Donald
  • Christopher Harris as Bill
  • Alan Heaps as Neville
  • Jonathan Heaps as Howard
  • Burnes Hollyman as Douglas
  • Peter Ksiezopolski as Francis
  • Anthony Mcall-Judson as Maurice
  • Malcolm Rodker as Harold
  • David St. Clair as George
  • Rene Sanfiorenzo Jr. as Charles
  • Jeremy Scuse as Rowland
  • John Stableford as Digby
  • Nicholas Valkenburg as Rupert
  • Patrick Valkenburg as Robin
  • Edward Valencia as Frederick
  • David Walsh as Percy
  • John Walsh as Michael
  • Jeremy Willis as Henry
  • Erik Jordan as Head Clapper Boy





Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Lord of the Flies (1963 film)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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