Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill

Hugh Walpole is better known in England than the U.S. His novels, like "Rogue Herries" were best sellers from 1910 to 1950. He was a keen literary figure, who rubbed at least one serious rival wrong. That rival, unfortunately, was a better novelist, William Somerset Maugham. If Americans recall Walpole at all it's for Maugham's mean portrait of him as the ambitious mediocrity Alroy Kear in "Cakes and Ale". But Maugham was sending up the English literary establishment in "Cakes and Ale", basing his central figure of "Edward Driffield" (the grand old man of English letters) on Thomas Hardy.

Walpole wrote "Mr. Perrin and Mr. Trail" in the 1930s, and it dealt with a subject not touched too frequently in British fiction: the public schools. The best known 19th Century public school tale was "Tom Brown's School Days", in which the experiment of Dr. Thomas Arnold in school reform was used for the basis of the novel. Oddly enough though, Thomas Hughes' novel is best remembered for the creation of the school bully Flashman (who George MacDonald Fraser turned into the "hero" of a series of good Victorian spoofs). Aside from that novel (and a few comments by Dickens and Thackeray in their autobiographical novels) there was silence. Walpole changed that and made a serious study of the dark world of public school rivalries between teachers, and the politics inside the schools.

Perrin (Marius Goring) is a boring mediocrity of a teacher. He is not upset about this, as there has been nothing to threaten his position at the school Then a new teacher, Trail (David Farrar) is hired. He is exciting and interesting and the boys like him. Perrin starts to fear for his job. He tells this to the headmaster Moy-Thompson (Raymond Huntley). Actually Perrin's position was never endangered, as he has been a source of information to Moy-Thompson of what the other teachers and the students are up to. But Moy-Thompson (the real villain in the story) takes advantage of this to squeeze Perrin even more. Perrin starts finding himself questioning why he is such a failure, but he finally brings himself together at the time of the story's crisis. I won't reveal this to the reader - see the film for that.

This film and "The Browning Version" (which is similar in it's way) are the dark side of public school teaching, as opposed to James Hilton's "Goodbye Mr. Chips". Yet Hilton is still read, while Walpole seems to have drifted into oblivion (the last time I heard of Walpole in any visual media is in the "Cheese shop" sketch of "Monty Python" when John Cleese mentions he got hungry for cheese while reading "Rogue Herries"). I suspect it is because "Chips" was lovable to his students, and became a school institution. But keep in mind that initially Mr. Chipping was a dry, pedantic bore. It was only when he marries that he softens, telling jokes to his students and taking an interest informing their characters. In short, Chipping was a luckier man than Perrin was, just as Hilton was a luckier novelist than Walpole.

This is a great story that holds you to it while the story unravels. The film is quited dated now but in a way that makes it all the more interesting. The main part is that of Marius Goring as Mr. Perrin who plays a teacher who seems to be very much a loner and ill at ease socially to such an extent that his feeble unsuccessful attempts to woo Greta Gynt who is won over by new teacher David Traill (David Farrar) plus the bullying he takes from the Headmaster Raymond Huntley takes him over the edge. We do not initially take to Mr Perrin but as the film unfolds he comes over as very much a victim of his time, his shyness and the overall situation at the public school where he teaches and has taught for 21 years. Some of the scenes are very short and punchy but the film moves along to its final tragic conclusion. We instinctively know something is going to happen but it is very difficult to second guess the outcome. There is an interesting article on the internet from the Old Monrovians School from a pupil who went on an organised visit to Denham while this film was being made. He describes the sets and also having a talk with Edward Chapman and also a 'very disinterested David Farrar' who apparently posed for a photograph and went back to his dressing room and was not seen again that day. Not often we hear of someone who had been to Denham so it is good to get such an insight

I found this to be a jaw dropping, rather disturbing movie. All about bullying, the headmaster bullying staff, the teacher bullying the children and the new teacher. Underneath all of this, the children treat it as the norm and are as happy as can be.

Terrific acting by all involved, this is, apart from the over-dramatic last ten minutes, an utterly believable movie.

The very last line is brilliantly delivered and says so much.

Terrific movie.

An unsparing portrait of school life reminiscent of the Swedish film 'Frenzy' with Marius Goring portraying Mr Chips as if he'd never mellowed. Although Hugh Walpole's novel had originally been published in 1911 it's plain this postwar version didn't require much updating.

It wasn't often that Marius Goring got to take centre stage with a part, but he does it here - and he does it quite well, too. He is the pernickety school master "Perrin" who finds his nose a little out of joint when he is saddled with new man "Traill" (David Farrar). This latter man is perfectly civil, but is also a man who speaks his mind and who isn't prepared to wait half an hour for a bath in the morning, or bother who reads "The Times" first either. "Perrin" finds this behaviour all a bit disrespectful and soon the pair at at loggerheads. Meantime, the headmaster "Moy-Thompson" (Raymond Huntley) is a bit of a stickler for authority, and an act of kindness from "Perrin" sets them on a collision course - one that engenders some sympathy from "Traill" (and from us, too). What's fairly clear now is that the older man is on a slippery slope. His life revolves around his teaching and though we do learn a little of a tragic backstory, it's the present day and the uncertainties it brings him that seem to be influencing his increasingly erratic behaviour. When "Traill" announces his engagement to "Isobel" (Greta Gynt) that seems to be the final straw - but is there nothing that can be done to reconcile the two men? It's got plenty of the "Mr. Chips" story to it, and there's a decent bit of chemistry between the two, equally frustrated, men in the title as the story unravels a little less predictably than you might expect. Huntley is also quite effective as the odious headmaster, too and the story is well enough paced to keep an element of suspense as to the denouement going til near the end. It's a decent adaptation of the Hugh Walpole novel and worth a watch.