Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill

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.

Most school films are usually most interesting because of unavoidable intrigues and complications with the constant presence of a variety of beautiful wives at risk and mischievous but innocent children, that more often than not succeed in making things worse without intending it. This is certainly no exception. Mr Perrin has been 21 years with the school and is one day suddenly challenged by a new master who has everything he lacks: an easy way with children earning him immediate sympathy and popularity, success with women, good looks and admirable sportsmanship. Mr Perrin's nickname is 'Pompo', which unfortunately he deserves. Marius Goring makes an unforgettable character out of him, living alone with his mother, being awkward with women for his shyness and getting harassed by the awful headmaster, who drives the whole school crazy by nasty covert means. Conflicts are inevitable and start with petty quarrels about bath-tubs, umbrellas and things like that but are gradually exacerbated to a horrendous degree. Whatever will come out of this towering trivial storm? It's impossible to guess, but in the end you risk having your eyes staring and starting out of their sockets. David Farrar is the younger handsome teacher in a typical part of his, he is also drinking here like in most of his films, and although it's unnecessary of him to worsen the conflict you have to agree that he just can't help it. It's a tremendous film of a storm in a teacup, but it's amazing how such an idyll of a teacup can produce such a storm...

This story is set at a bording school...the sort of place that used to be popular for middle class and up and coming families. The one here has a headmaster that simply accepts no discussion from his staff and he treats them like the pupils.

Into this fascist sort of environment arrives a new teacher, Mr. Traill. Traill is fresh out of the military but is a rather decent and laid back guy. This is a problem, as his superior, Mr. Perrin is a very rigid and small-minded man. Traill's manners and style rub him wrong...and Perrin takes an almost immediate dislike for him. Finishing up the term here is going to be very difficult and you assume sooner or later, something has to give as the tension is so obvious that the kids pick up on it. The ending to this tale is very shocking and a bit surprise. I also loved the scene just after this between Traill and the headmaster...it's very welcome.

Overall, an extremely well acted and enjoyable character study that is well worth your time.

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.

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.