Tom Brown's Schooldays

John Howard Davies - probably most famous for his portrayal of orphan "Oliver Twist" in David Lean's classic - is a little too weedy, for me, as the title character in this adaptation of Thomas Hughes' story about a young boy sent to the prestigious Rugby School in the 1830's where he encounters bullies; brutality and ultimately kindness. Robert Newton turns in a great performance as "Dr. Arnold" who believes that the somewhat cruel educational practices are of the past, and so he and "Tom Brown" try to improve things. This film is not so faithful to the book; but uses the two lead performances, as well as a convincing effort from John Forrest as his nemesis "Flashman", to convey much of it's sentiment. I probably preferred the 1940 version, but there's not much in it.

The film appears to show people who felt they knew what right was and who acted in harmony with that inner conviction , right as the bible describes it to be for the school headmaster reads the parable of seed from the bible and otherwise quotes from it, and appears to be a living example of its precepts in his comportment. His reasonableness is most winsome especially in the scene where he rebukes the younger teacher for lack of respect toward the older teachers, notwithstanding the fact that he agrees with the younger teachers argument, he nonetheless criticises the way he presented it. The compelling invisible force that made people believe that they knew the right they felt was....was ..right and the subsequent belief that good would eventually triumph over bad, evil, naughtiness call it what you like, is undeniable in this film, and if Flashman is symbolic of the axis of evil, then maybe expulsion of them is mankinds only hope. Who will do the expelling? Who decides what is right? Evil? I love films that get you thinking!

"Tom Brown's Schooldays" is a semi-autobiographical novel by Thomas Hughes published in 1856. The author himself attended Rugby school as a boy & it is obvious that the book could only have been written by someone who had experienced life in an English public school firsthand. All English public schools, (& some quite ordinary boys schools), had a "fazing system". New boys were exposed to "initiation ceremonies" involving humiliation & bullying which was supposed to "toughen them up" & make men of them. In reality it was just an excuse for some of the older boys with a nasty nature to mete out punishment & degradation on innocent young boys. Such behaviour still takes place today for new Army recruits. Getting on to the 1951 movie it is a faithful adaptation of the novel. John Howard Davies plays young Tom Brown who when he first arrives at Rugby as an 11 year old is befriended by East (John Charlesworth). East is starting his second year & passes on what he has learned to his new friend & in particular he warns him to beware of Flashman. Flashman, (extremely well played by John Forrest), is a thoroughly obnoxious young man & a bully of the worst possible kind. At one point in the movie Tom Brown is "roasted" by Flashman against a roaring coal fire forcing him to give up a race ticket he has won in a lottery for the Derby favourite. Brown refuses to give it up & has his backside badly burned in what amounts to being tortured. He also refuses to tell the headmaster who did it to him. The headmaster Thomas Arnold is played by one of the great character actors of British cinema Robert Newton who gives, (for him), a fairly restrained performance. The full story is very entertaining & at the movies end Flashman, deservedly, gets his comeuppance by being expelled resulting from another incident involving Tom Brown & his friend East. Worthy of mention, too, is the musical score written for the movie by Richard Adinsell which is excellent. Great Stuff!.

On one level this is a rollicking tale of life in an English Public School (other nationals may need to remember to read "Private" for "Public" here.) during the reign of King William IV in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is a well acted and well directed film that most people would find enjoyable to watch, but because of the specialised and unfamiliar scenario it is unlikely to attract audiences from outside those who themselves attended similar schools or those with some form of interest in the history of education.

At a slightly deeper level we must recognise that this film is essentially a remake of a film with a very similar title (Tom Brown's School Days rather than Tom Brown's Schooldays) released ten years earlier. Both films featured Rugby school under the headmastership of the famous educationalist Thomas Arnold - a part played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke in the earlier film and by Robert Newton in this remake - and both were based on the book of the same name written by Thomas Hughes in 1857. It is very hard to discuss one of these films without referring to the other, and since there is no point in duplicating comments on this IMDb database I would recommend anyone reading this page who is sufficiently interested to refer also to my comments on the earlier film. This second version of the story is much more melodramatic than the previous one, but is less in keeping with the original book, and I feel that it probably reflects life as it was in Rugby school at the time less accurately. The climax of the book is Arnold expelling the school bully Flashman for breaching the school moral code. This later film is slightly longer than its predecessor and in it Flashman's behaviour is shown as so reprehensible that the viewer can have no sympathy for him, whereas in the book and the earlier film Flashman is simply a typical bully who is caught out for lying. This is important because it causes the viewer to reflect on the magnitude of the task of creating a school code of conduct strict enough to justify this expulsion. For these reasons, whilst I can watch and enjoy both these films almost equally, I regard the 1940 film as the better, and as more worthy of repeat viewing. For the IMDb database I have also rated it slightly higher than the present one (six out of ten rather than five out of ten).

Comparisons with 'Goodbye, Mr Chips', 'The Winslow Boy' and 'The Browning Version' are inevitable, but this film just hasn't quite got the chops to compete. It's fascinating as a pseudo-historical record of public school life in the mid-19th Century, but the story fails to engage fully. However, it's an innocent enough way to pass the time without boring you rigid. Damned with faint praise.