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With the tagline "What side would you be on?" the surreal and allegorical film If . . . portrayed an oppressive public school regime and boys who refused to conform.

The 1968 film was made in Cheltenham and scriptwriter David Sherwin still lives in the Forest of Dean. His description of the film? He simply says:

"If...  is the sort of film where you are never quite sure where you are with it."

If... launched the playwright's career and changed his life. Cheltenham College was used as the backdrop for the school scenes.

And taking a look round the county, David Sherwin fell so in love with the Forest of Dean he decided to make his home there.

He recalls: "When I was shooting in Cheltenham I went exploring in the Forest and thought 'This is unlike any part of England I've ever been to."

The film shocked with its violence

When film director Lindsay Anderson was looking for the setting for the old-established boarding school the boys rebel against he came back to his old school, Cheltenham College, and its elegant buildings became one of the movie's stars.

The school's present headmaster Paul Chamberlain says:

"It didn't go down very well with those who knew and loved the school very well because it put it in such a bad light that they just felt it was rather denigrating. But it was so long ago now that we are very relaxed about it."

In 1968, If... shocked filmgoers with its violence and insurrection. But the film was nominated for BAFTA and Golden Globe awards and won the coveted Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival.

For David Sherwin it was a great time to be making films. He recalls:

 "We make films about nothing and the great thing about If... is that it's a film about something.

"God knows what and I'm not going to analyse it. It's one of the mysteries of life."

David Sherwin lives in Gloucestershire

It may be over 30 years old but memorable lines from the film's central character Mick Travis like "One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place" and "There's no such thing as a wrong war. Violence and revolution are the only pure acts" could have come straight out of a contemporary terrorist’s manual.

Whatever you make of If... its release almost 35 years on offers a nostalgic trip back in time to the Cheltenham of the 1960s and the chance to see what was hailed at the time as a seminal film. One fan of the film says:

"To get the most out of this film you have to be English, male and a teenager; in 1979 when I first saw it I was all three."

This film was to England what The Wild One or Rebel Without A Cause was to America.
 
"In the years that followed I would catch it wherever I could, be it on television, in the college bar or in some local, flea-ridden rep cinema.

"This film was to England what The Wild One or Rebel Without A Cause was to America. Show it to your teenage sons. They will remember it for the rest of their lives, and one day they might even thank you for it."