Kingsley Amis was not an "Angry Young Man",Jim Dixon was no Jimmy Porter full of contempt and loathing. He was,no doubt,and rightly so,contemptuous of his boss Professor Welch but desperate to keep on the right side of him as he struggled to retain a permanent position in Welch's History Dept in a less than inspiring provincial university in the early 1950s. "No other Professor in Great Britain",thought Jim,"set such store by being called Professor". Welch is played in the Grand Manner by Mr H.Griffith whose plummy Welsh tones roll around Common Rooms and Dining Rooms alike. He feeds off the sycophancy of his inferiors - anybody who is not a Professor - and accepts Dixon's unquestioning advocacy as his due. His son Bertrand(Mr T - Thomas;quite brilliant) is an objectionable would - be writer,also assiduous in seeking acolytes and admirers. His girlfriend Christine(Miss S. Acker fitting a fifties stereotype) becomes the object of Dixon's fantasies as he struggles to rescue himself from a somewhat bizarre relationship with a work colleague. Mr I.Carmichael is a slightly more assertive Stanley Windrush - the character he played in other Boulting comedies. The novel relates Dixon's thoughts and no one else's so with the film we are seeing Jim from the outside for the first time and the Boultings actually make a good job of fleshing him out,perhaps making him "nicer" than Amis intended,but giving Mr Carmichael a chance to move away from his nervous city gent,junior - officer persona. James Ellroy said of the filmed adaptation of "L.A.Confidential".. "The book was mine - the movie is theirs". Mr Amis may not have been so pragmatic,but the sentiment remains true. His novel was a bit more subtle,his Dixon perhaps more complex,and there are some jarring differences that will surprise and perhaps offend the more sensitive of the book's admirers,but the fact remains that the film "Lucky Jim" is very funny with some fine British actors at the top of their game and a worthy addition to the Boulting Brothers' oeuvre.