Tom Brown's Schooldays

I recently seen Tom Brown's Schooldays for the first time and enjoyed it.

Tom Brown starts Rugby School and it isn't long before he becomes one of the victims of the school bully, Flashman. A year later, he is assigned to look after a new starter, the rather nervous Arthur. He also becomes a victim of Flashman and together with Tom's friend East, they help Flashman to get his comeuppance at the end and he is thrown out and the bullying stops.

Tom Brown's Schooldays gives you an idea on what life was like in school many years ago.

Now to the cast with an excellent performance from John Howard Davies (Oliver Twist) as Tom, Robert Newton (Treasure Island) as the head, Diania Wynyard (On the Night of the Fire), James Hayter, Michael Hordern (Scrooge), Max Bygraves (who doesn't sing in this) and Francis De Wolff (Corriders of Blood). Also, John Charlesworth as East, Glyn Dearman as Arthur and John Forrest as the bully Flashman. Quite a collection of well known British talent there.

Tom Brown's Schooldays is certainly worth checking out if you get the chance. Great stuff.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

Old-fashioned British film-making at its best, taking a literary classic, in this case Thomas Hughes's novel of the same name, and simply re-telling the tale in an un-flashy (pardon the pun) manner.

Reportedly faithful to the book source (although I've read the book, it was donkeys years ago, as a boy), the film certainly seems to accurately recreate the cloistered world of private boarding schools of the early 19th Century and all the calumnies which occurred on campus, none worse than the established but nefarious practice of older-form boys requiring the first-year intake to "fag" for them, which basically meant them doing any kind of menial task considered beneath their elders. The point is made in the film that most of the teaching staff were aware of and indeed condoned the practice, probably because they'd been through it themselves and took the view that it was a necessary rite of passage on the path to manhood. Utter nonsense, of course, it was authorised institutional bullying, involving both psychological and physical abuse, usually combined at the same time with anyone trying to change the status quo, such as one of the junior masters or even the humanitarian headmaster Dr Thomas Arnold, denounced as reformers, terrible thing.

Into this battle-, sorry, school-ground comes young Tom Brown, a reserved boy of eleven who despite making friends his own age soon learns his place at the bottom of the school hierarchy and worse, comes into the orbit of the school's most notorious bully, Flashman, who takes an immediate dislike to him and tries to make his life a misery. But young Tom, despite being pushed to his limits, is no quitter and finds a way to get back at his tormentor by learning a new skill over the summer break.

The climax of the film involves Tom and a couple of his chums carrying out a brave and selfless act which sees one of their number face a life or death struggle while the rescued party, in classic blame-avoidance fashion tries to twist the truth for their own ends.

Thankfully truth will out and helped along by a healthy dose of Christian prayer, wrongs are righted although you suspect Dr Arnold might need to apply some root and branch treatment to rid the school of some of the more ingrained practices perpetrated by both senior staff and pupils.

I could have done without the forced religiosity at the end and unsurprisingly some of the child acting is a little stiff and wooden in places but there's no denying this is a rattling good tale with an exemplary young hero who learns fast how to handle himself in an alien environment (I had to smile at the second-year Tom calling his new protege "young 'un"). Young John Howard Davies and Robert Newton are happily reunited from David Lean's "Oliver Twist" three years before, the latter in a markedly different role, while John Forrest shines as the venal, rascally Flashman.

A success at the U.K. box-office with its example of the national stiff upper lip to a land still enduring the stringencies of post-war rationing and all that, it's an entertaining, well-made British drama with an underlying anti-bullying message still highly topical today.

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).

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!

The film follows the trials and tribulations of a young schoolboy, Tom Brown, who is sent to Rugby public school.

Here he is looked after on arrival by "Scud" East who becomes his friend. East helps the young Brown to make his way through the initiations that each newcomer is expected to undergo. They include Singing in the Hall whilst being pelted with all manner of small objects, and also the tradition of "fagging" - this means running errands and doing small jobs for the 6th Formers.

The school bully , Flashman, although only being a 5th Former forces the younger boys to undertake these "fagging" tasks, failure on their part usually resulting in some kind of punishment. One of these is "Roasting' - the young boy being held against a hearth where an open fire singes their legs.

Tom is forced to undergo this treatment. Shortly afterwards he and East rebel against Flashman and a fight ensues with the two younger boys emerging victorious.This puts an end to the bullying.

All in all a very watchable film. Of course the discipline endured by the boys at Rugby in the 1830's is long gone. Maybe it a loss to modern society, of course we will never know.

Recommended viewing.