Lord of the Flies, 1963 black and white version

This movie is based on "Lord of the Flies", a novel by William Golding.
This is the story of a controlled experiment. Here are the variables:
you are a child,
stranded on an island
all your luggage, supplies and the airplane that carried you are underwater
Pretty horrible right? It gets worse. You are not alone. You are with a bunch of mostly prepubescent boys and some too young to survive without your help.

Into this island test tube two leaders emerge: Jack, (Tom Chapin) the oldest of the group. Jack demands the children listen to him because he is the oldest boy and used to authority. And the other boy, Ralph. Though not as old as Jack , Ralph (James Aubrey) is one of the four older boys. Ralph is not interested in leadership so much as in going home. It is obvious to Ralph that if any of them are ever to be rescued they will need a plan, a leader and they will need to work together.
The boys are put off by Jack’s arrogance so leadership is put to a vote and that burden is put on Ralph.

With the help of Piggy, (Hugh Edwards) another of the older boys, Ralph makes a reasonable plan, the area will be explored, a signal fire will be built and maintained, food and shelter are in the works.

Things go horribly wrong. Although Jack accepted the leadership vote as fair he never actually gave up the pull for control. His influence on the boys is constant and disruptive. As in “The Ox-Bow Incident” people make that subtle shift from thinking as individuals to thinking as a group. The boys gradually split. Simultaneously, bit by bit, civilization falls away . The resulting mob moves off with Jack leaving only the smaller, helpless boys with Ralph and Piggy.
“Why are things going wrong?” Piggy
That is the question we can try to puzzle out as we read the book or watch this movie; when, why, and how do things go wrong? What I think: things never start going wrong. That is always happening.

I hope this book is still read in public schools. I remember reading it in the Junior year.
The teacher used this book to explain what it meant to identify with a character. We were each to write down the boy’s name we had identified with. About 50% of our class had identified with Ralph and the rest with Jack. Two or three had identified with Piggy. The teacher read out from her answer book what our choices supposedly revealed about our personalities. I patiently waited but apparently my boy was not one of those in her answer book.

“We are the beasts” Simon (Tom Gaman)