General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The System (1964 film)

The System is a 1964 British drama directed by Michael Winner, written by Peter Draper, and starring Oliver Reed as Tinker, the leader of a gang of seaside young men who seduce and then abandon the summer tourists to their Devon resort town. Released in the United States as The Girl-Getters, it was the first of six films Reed made with Winner and was photographed by Nicolas Roeg shortly before Roeg turned to directing.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Original / US title	The System (UK); The Girl-Getters (US)²
Director / writer	Michael Winner; screenplay by Peter Draper¹
Principal cast	Oliver Reed (Tinker), Jane Merrow (Nicola), Barbara Ferris (Suzy), Julia Foster (Lorna), Harry Andrews (Larsey)¹
Key crew	Cinematography Nicolas Roeg; music Stanley Black¹
Production / distribution	Kenneth Shipman Productions; distributed by Bryanston Films²^•¹
Release dates	UK 1 September 1964 and US 12 April 1964 per Letterboxd; Rotten Tomatoes lists 11 October 1964; a study of Bryanston Films dates the release to September 1964⁴^•¹^•⁵
Running time	93 minutes per Rotten Tomatoes; 90 minutes per the Kino Lorber and Indicator releases¹^•⁶
Filming locations	Paignton, Torquay and Brixham in Devon, standing in for the fictional town of Roxham⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Tinker (Oliver Reed) works as a beach photographer in a Devon seaside resort, which gives him the names and addresses of his female clients. These go into a pool from which he and his friends, all employed in jobs serving the seasonal tourist trade, make their selections and pursue the visiting women.¹^•⁸

Near the end of one summer, Tinker sets his sights on Nicola (Jane Merrow), an elegant fashion model staying with her wealthy father at his holiday house. She plays him at his own game, and for the first time he falls in love.⁷ The summer ends with the break-up of the gang: Nidge (John Alderton) marries his pregnant girlfriend, Suzy (Barbara Ferris), an old flame of Tinker's, is herself abandoned by Nicola's father, and the holidaymakers leave, including Nicola, for whom Tinker was only a passing distraction.⁷

Production

Winner had wanted Reed for the lead in his previous film, West 11 (1963), but his producers rejected the idea, judging the star of Hammer's The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) and Paranoiac (1963) a B actor unworthy of the part. Acting as his own producer on The System, Winner brought Reed aboard to play the leader of the gang.⁹ The production company was Kenneth Shipman Productions.²

Locations. Most of the filming took place in Paignton, Torquay and Brixham, after which the fictional resort in the film was named Roxham.⁷ The opening railway scenes were shot on the Kingswear branch: young men join a train at Churston station near Dartmouth, and the station at Brixham, called Boxham Station in the film, also appears. Brixham station had already been removed from the national network in May 1963, before the 1964 filming, and the track was lifted shortly afterwards; Churston station survived until 1972 and now forms part of the Paignton and Dartmouth Railway.¹⁰^•² Other identifiable locations include Boat Cove at Dawlish and the seafront and pier at Paignton.²

Release and reception

The film was distributed by Bryanston Films. A study of the company records that by the time The System was released in September 1964, Bryanston's fate had effectively been sealed, following production delays caused by the 1963 industry crisis.⁵ Letterboxd lists a UK theatrical release of 1 September 1964 and a US theatrical release of 12 April 1964, while Rotten Tomatoes gives 11 October 1964.⁴^•¹

The theme song heard over the opening credits was sung by The Searchers.⁸ On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a Tomatometer score of 54 percent from two reviews; critic Kathy Fennessy of the Seattle Film Blog called it "a very British film that compares favorably to the work of Tony Richardson and John Schlesinger," and John J. Puccio of Movie Metropolis wrote that "thanks largely to Oliver Reed's engaging portrait... the movie holds up well."¹

Place in British cinema

Commentators have read the film as a bridge between the British "kitchen sink" social realism dramas and the disillusioned youth films of the later 1960s, noting its attention to the class structure of the resort: working-class locals dependent on the tourist trade, middle-class vacationers, and the upper class who own or rent villas.⁸ The BFI's list of Oliver Reed's essential films describes The System as catching the spirit of swinging London, alongside the later Winner collaborations The Jokers (1967) and I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967).¹¹

Home video

Indicator/Powerhouse Films released a limited edition Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on 23 September 2019, with a commentary by film historians Thirza Wakefield and Melanie Williams, interview features with Jane Merrow, John Porter-Davison and Jeremy Burnham, and Winner's 1961 travelogue Haunted England as extras.³ Kino Lorber released the film on Blu-ray in the United States on 28 July 2020, with a commentary by critic Stephen Vagg and a video interview with Jane Merrow.⁶

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026