Based on books by Stephen Potter (“Gamesmanship,” “Lifemanship,” and “Oneupmanship”), School for Scoundrels employs Professor Alastair Sim to head “an academy which teaches its adult pupils how to upstage, over-awe, bruise, crush, obliterate and expunge, with apparently impeccable politeness, the egos of all rivals in the universal rat race.... It indicates the heavy crudity of middle-class ploys, while establishing that exacerbated dread of hostile judgment, that terrorized and often unjustified, certainty of every betrayal of non-stock emotion being silently noted, possibly to be non-committally held against one, which renders the Englishman so constrained, and gives the stiff upper lip its roots, not only in stoicism, but in fear.” (Raymond Durgnat, “A Mirror for England”)
“Although slightly soft-pedalled in its barbed humor, doubtless the influence of American co-producer (and former Dead End Kid) Hal Chester in trying to ‘popularize' it for the U.S. market, one can still assume that the major contributions come from director Hamer, co-writer Ustinov, the original books, and of course a marvellous group of British comedians and character people. Only Janette Scott, the quite lovely and very charming heroine, is allowed to play it straight and with grace; everybody else either over-acts with relish, or underplays for even greater effect, as Sim certainly does.”