[.ca] The Browning Version (Criterion Collection) (1951)

From Amazon.com:
Michael Redgrave etched his subtlest and, in its peculiar way, most beloved screen performance in this classic film version of Terence Rattigan's play. Play and film chronicle the final day of teaching for Andrew Crocker-Harris, a cold-fish public school instructor who has long since outlived his early promise. That his classics students, his colleagues, and even his somewhat younger wife refer to him as "the Crock" is not a mark of affection. Wheezing pedantically, making arcane classical puns without hope of raising a laugh, he's an anti-Mr. Chips to whom nearly everyone will be happy to say goodbye. Except that on this last day, with his health failing, his wife (Jean Kent) openly carrying on an affair, and his headmaster (the redoubtably smarmy Wilfrid Hyde-White) eager to whisk him off to retirement, Crocker-Harris achieves an order of triumph that the film marks without a whiff of sentimentality. Rattigan was a meticulous composer of the "well-made play," and Anthony Asquith, who directed 10 films from Rattigan scripts over a quarter-century, was a reliable craftsman who never tried to upstage his material. (Asquith's best film apart from Rattigan was the delicious rendition of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest he and Redgrave did the following year.) It's easy to protest that this is not a formula for exciting "cinema": every scene of The Browning Version could be (and had been) performed on stage. Yet this subtly shaded and finally very moving immersion in "human nature"--to use a phrase "the Crock" scorns at one point--makes a virtue of reticence. By the time it's over, you know it has all the cinema it needs. --Richard T. Jameson

don't let this ultra-dull title deter you - it's a WINNER!!:
This movie really surprised...a beautiful, well-constructed, well-thought-out, fantastically acted, subtle, insightful WINNER, one of the best films I've seen in a year! It was a story about a teacher (who could be any person, man or woman) truly coming to terms with his own emotional deadness, and in so doing, coming back in touch with his true life force. Through admitting his inner deadness to those he was entrusted to guide - his students - he affirms to them what they have felt and whispered about all along...and in so doing offers them a better chance to stay on the path of life...and step off the path that has been so "soul crushing". In effect, he redeems himself as a true teacher by setting such a profound and beautiful example. I loved this movie because it is the metaphor for the emotionally dead parent coming clean, and giving us, the wounded children, a new hope for life. Of course, in reality it is rare that a parent comes clean as such, but that's okay, because as adults we can do it ourselves...and there are no lack of people who are in need of such an example.

The Asquith Version:
Michael Redgrave turns in a sterling performance as one of British cinema's most pitiful and tragic creatures: Terence Rattigan's despised schoolmaster, Andrew Crocker-Harris. Rattigan works from his own one-act play, the major difference being the longer (and more hopeful) ending. It is some ten or fifteen minutes or so before Redgrave appears, with the result that the character is built up in the mind of the audience as something of a legend, known of only through the semi-apocryphal caricatures related by the other characters. This sets the stage nicely for the gradual revelation of Crocker-Harris's humanity underneath the cold, passionless exterior. Redgrave is particularly campy when he initially appears, but soon settles down into a more subdued, but brilliantly acted performance. The actor (whose name escapes me) playing the young Taplow also manages an excellent performance, noticeably devoid of the stiltedness and artificiality that is present in so many other child actors of his generation. Rattigan's story is told melodramatically, but believably, through the lens of veteran photographer Desmond Dickinson's camera, and (as expected) tightly executed by Anthony Asquith. The central performances are bolstered by impressive supporting players. Also worth seeing is Albert Finney's (almost equally affecting) performance in the Figgis version, some forty-five years later.

Perhaps the finest movie I have ever seen -- a true classic:
I watched this movie many years ago on PBS simply by chance. I have since acquired my own copy and have watched it many times. The story and characters have remained with me ever since. Michael Redgrave gives a performance that is, quite simply, stunning. Redgrave plays an aging and depressed schoolmaster at an English boarding school who, despite a promising start as a teacher many years before, has now failed as a teacher and as a husband. His wife is a nightmare -- conniving, duplicitous and unfaithful. His tolerance of her maliciousness, and of his own failings, is touchingly played out in one heartrending scene after another. Into this malaise comes a young student who, unlike his fellow students, recognizes the brilliance and potential of the old schoolmaster. When he gives the old man the present of a book of poems by Browning, it reawakens a long lost spirit. If you see no other movie, see this one -- please. You'll never forget it. I never will.

IF YOU WANT TO SEE GREAT ACTING, HERE IT IS!:
Michael Redgrave, that's who! Surely his has got to be one of the greatest performances of our century. The words "Magnificent" and "Brilliant" only come near to describing the work of this actor in this film. Be prepared to feel sad, and even cry. This is a film about the death of humanity and the concommitant loss of self-esteem in a person. Yet the story bespeaks compassion and love of fellow man. The perfect direction by Anthony Asquith and a fine supporting cast draws one in from the get-go. Redgrave holds one spellbound. I can't praise it too much, and if any film buff misses this one, he is sorely lacking in the knowledge and experience of the very best.

Beautiful, Powerful, Heart-Rending, Delicate, Deft!:
Terence Rattigan's screenplay for "The Browning Version" expands and greatly improves his short stage play of the same name. The title refers to a translation by the poet, Robert Browning, of "Agamemnon," a classical Greek tragedy. The film's protagonist, Andrew Crocker-Harris, an English private school teacher brilliantly played by Michael Redgrave, once wrote a translation of "Agamemnon," and has been trying for years to teach 14-year-old boys to read the Greek original. Because of poor health and general dissatisfaction with his performance, he has resigned his position. In the tragedy, Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, aided by her lover. In the film, Crocker-Harris is spiritually dead, partly from spousal "murder," although the slaughter has been reciprocal, and his wife, Millie, is in worse shape than he. In tragedies, the hero starts out happy and becomes miserable. In this film, full of the sadness of professional and domestic failure, Crocker-Harris moves away from misery, via understanding and heartfelt repentance, to the possibility of happiness. The reversal owes much to the intervention of Taplow, one of Crocker-Harris' students, and of Frank Hunter, his colleague and Millie's lover. The film deftly introduces these "good Samaritans" in a lively dispute, in which they display the personal qualities that will make them helpful to Crocker-Harris. Both are spirited, bold, good-natured, intelligent and well-rounded. An interesting question is why they come to the rescue of Crocker-Harris and not of his wife. Her coarse brutality toward Crocker-Harris is hard to forgive, but so is his refined humiliation of students. At the outset, two huge defeats, heart disease and forced resignation, invite our compassion for him. His language, beautifully dressed, raised in pitch but never in volume, quiet, clear, restrained, invites attention and leaves room for helpers. Following Taplow's lead, we start the film wondering what is wrong, and hoping to fix it. But most important, Taplow and Hunter appreciate this man, who is really dying to be liked. They like him, and they don't like Millie. My only criticism of the screenplay is the audience response, at a school assembly, to Crocker-Harris' farewell speech. The reaction is not realistic, I think, given the school's long-established fear and rejection of this man. But it is surely our reaction, after what we have just experienced. At the Cannes Film Festival, Terence Rattigan was awarded Best Screenplay and Michael Redgrave, Best Actor. Emphatically deserved! The film is beautifully directed by Anthony Asquith, with a fine cast, especially Brian Smith as Taplow and Nigel Patrick as Hunter. (This review is based on the VHS edition.)