Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Adaption from Book
Review: This movie is an excellent adaption from the Lord of the Flies book, and follows the plot to the letter.I personally feel it is superior to the remake in the late 80s (or early 90s?).
Rating:
Summary: a disturbing film.
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film. This film, based on William Godling's novel, is a film that many will find disturbing. Having not read the book, I am uncertain if the film is close to the book or not, but I have heard people say both. The story is about some schoolboys who become stranded on an island after a plane crash. They later, (with no adult presence) start regressing to a savage state and do not remain civilized. The film itself also has nudity which I am surprised the censors let pass given the time period in which the film was made. Even by today's standards, some may question the legality of nudity involving children. Since the nudity is clearly non-sexual it is legal, but still will offend some people. There are numerous special features which are as follows. Full length audio comentary by the director Peter Brook, producer Lewis Allen, director of photography Tom Hollyman, camera operator and editor Gerald Feil. Theatrical trailer with and without audio commentary about a major problem that almost happened at the film's premire. Deleted scene with and without commentary and a reading by author, William Golding. Excerpts from the novel read by the author William Golding.
Screen tests and outtakes. Scenes from a documentary about director Peter Brook's theatrical techniques.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Rendition
Review: This version of "Lord of the Flies" seems to follow the book rather closely. That is, the 1962 version. Don't mess with the later version, released in the early '90s. This film shows us how easily we civilized humans revert to savagery. I think that is our basic instinct, and we really have to work to be 'civilized'. I think that several scenes were left out, but the film had to be cut in order to be viewed by a typical audience. I think that at least 2 hours were cut from the original. If you have read "Lord of the Flies", you will enjoy this movie. Buy it. It follows the book nicely.
Rating: 
Summary: Totally captivating movie
Review: This, the 1963 version of Lord of the Flies, is definitely the superior version. A captivating movie with beatiful black and white cinematography, excellent non-Hollywood acting, and one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. The soundtrack is from Misa Luba, a Latin mass sung by a Belgian Congo choir.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite dull
Review: When I rented the 1963 "Lord of the Flies" movie on VHS, I expected to see a gripping, thrilling tale, dramatic, and disturbing. But what do I see? A bunch of clean, orderly looking boys with their hair neatly combed saying their scripted lines with absolutely no feeling or enthusiasm. The film doesn't even explain what the "lord of the flies" actually is. (If you want to find out what the lord of the flies is, read the book). If I had watched the movie without having read the book, I would have thought it was a great movie, and that the book couldn't be too much better. But instead, I sat through the whole 90 minutes, recalling parts of the book that were left out or changed in favor of something much more boring or unrealistic.
My advice...read the book, and don't waste your time with this movie, it's horrible.
Thank goodness I only rented it.
Rating:
Summary: "We'll have lots of rules"
Review: When I was a kid, I wanted nothing so much as to live on a Carribean island. Warmth, water, critters, sea life, and running around naked made me envy Ralph, Jack, and the rest despite the outcome; they only needed a few girls there too. William Golding was a devout Catholic, and his novel arises from the beliefs and doctrines of that church. The foremost is the view of mankind as hopelessly compromised in its character and unable to create a decent society without the grace of higher power. Without this grace, humans lose the consciousness of themselves and others that makes a higher form of existence possible, and they become 'beasts' who are neither good nor bad, but amoral. This amorality can be seen either as a state of innocence or a state of savagery. And so, Golding used kids, whose consciousness is much lower and whose veneer of civilized behavior is much thinner than adults, to examine the process of a decline into that primodial state. Humanists dislike Golding's novel since it asserts that people are incorrigible, and a civil society is unattainable and unsustainable without religious belief and guidance (or at least the appearance of it). Golding implies that rules and laws are not enough, and the nature of society depends on the nature of its individuals. But I think Golding intended a deeper meaning than the political implications that many take from it, which is that God is what makes humans unlike beasts but something more. Much as the presence of adults turns children into adults as they grow, the presence of the divine is what gives people the things they cherish most: the awareness of themselves and others as human and all that goes with that. Whether that is the case remains to be proven and may be unproveable. There's a Darwinian aspect to the story also in that Jack turned out to be the successful competitor in the situation into which the boys were thrown. Ralph had too civilized a character to oppose Jack at his level. The promise of salvation and rescue is too remote to overcome Jack's ability to feed the boys' immediate needs and desires. Peter Brook and the rest did a excellent job of filming Golding's novel. It's much better than later Amercanized version if only because the kids are much more sympathetic. I missed the conversation between Simon and the pig's head, but including it wouldn't have worked as well as the silent confrontation Brook chose instead. Golding set the action on a Pacific island with the boys probably fleeing one of the British colonies there. Two obvious things tell the viewer that it was filmed in the Carribean: the queen conch which is used for a trumpet and the sea grapes on the beach. Neither of them are found in the Pacific. The making of the film of the novel is at least as interesting as the film itself. This DVD contains a good bit of information on that subject. Outtakes, home movies, and deleted scenes are included as well as commentary by the filmmakers. The commentary is interesting, but I wish Peter Brook had spent more time explaining the specifics of the scenes as they occur instead of spouting gassy generalities about filmmaking. The picture is amazingly clear. The footage of the boys when they weren't performing brings back my old desire, and I wish I could have been a part of the project. The scene where James Aubrey (Ralph) and Tom Chapin (Jack) strip naked and dash into surf makes me sick with envy. Criterion has done an excellent job with this film.
Rating:
Summary: Lord of the Flies.......metaphysical definition.....Belzebub
Review: Young boys shipwrecked on a deserted island...two camps emerge...one camp planning to stay on the island...the other camp anticipating rescue...one camp motivated by fear,confusion, and idolatry...the other driven by faith, hope, and unity... This film speaks of the duality of man...carnal vs spiritual...the flesh warring against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. Simon (the bearer of truth) was falsely accused of being a monster ....Point being.... truth is always the monster which threatens a lie. In viewing this film try to look for meaningful symbols which speak of deeper truth...It is "young blonde beast ravening prey"....it is lawlessness...yet at the same time it is the just living by faith....it is hope....
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