The Browning Version (1951)
Directed by Anthony Asquith

Film Review

Having successfully adapted one Terence Rattigan play, The Winslow Boy (1948), Anthony Asquith immediately set about adapting another, the result being the exquisitely poignant The Browning Version.  Asquith was particularly adept at adapting stage plays, evidenced by his earlier Pygmalion (1938) and subsequent The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), skilfully retaining the essence of the original play without making it appear like a filmed piece of theatre.  The Browning Version is among the finest of Asquith's films, an honest, deeply moving character study that offers the most savagely unromantic view of the life of a schoolmaster.  For anyone who feels offended by the forced sentimentality of Goodbye, Mr. Chips this film is the perfect antidote.

The film marks not only an artistic high point for its director but also for his lead actor, Michael Redgrave, who turns in the performance of his career (one that won him the Best Actor award at Cannes in 1951) as the ageing schoolmaster who is suddenly confronted with the soul-destroying realisation that his entire life has been a failure.  Redgrave's Crocker-Harris is far from being the most sympathetic of characters.  He lives up to his nickname (Himmler) by constantly intimidating his pupils instead of encouraging them.  Once a brilliant classics scholar he now wallows in the abyss of mediocrity and passively accepts the contempt that others are so willing to mete out to him.  As his headmaster robs him of his pension his wife is carrying on an affair with another man - neither seems to concern him.  Crocker-Harris is the weakest, most contemptible specimen of humanity, but Redgrave compels us to feel for him and by the end of the film we have grown to love him.  The teacher's redemption may seem a little contrived but, thanks to Redgrave's captivating and nuanced character portrayal, it is inescapably heartrending.  If a pitiful shadow of a man like Crocker-Harris can be saved, there's hope for us all.

That Jean Kent is somewhat less convincing as the main character's despicable wife has more to do with Rattigan's antipathy towards women than a failing on the part of the actress.  So vile is Kent's Mrs Crocker-Harris that you wonder how any man could fall for her - one can only assume that, prior to the events depicted in the film, she had been more successful at concealing her pathological spite and egocentricity.  Wilfrid Hyde-White's headmaster turns out to be equally as repugnant, the actor's overpowering geniality proving to be the thinnest of veils for the snide, calculating bastard that lurks beneath.  Even the most sympathetic of Crocker-Harris's students, Taplow (played with immense charm by Brian Smith), leaves us wondering whether his apparently kind actions may be motivated by self-interest.  Nigel Patrick's Frank Hunter is the only character in the dramatis persona (other than Crocker-Harris) with any sense of decency, the only one who shows any sign of humanity - and he is the man who wrecked the hero's marriage.

Asquith was never a showy director but his understated workman-like approach pays dividends when he has an exceptional script and cast at his disposal. Rattigan's well-crafted screenplay, a keenly observed study in human nature, is where the genius of The Browning Version lies, and it is to Asquith's credit that he respects this and directs the film in the service of his script.  This, coupled with a standout performance from Michael Redgrave, makes The Browning Version an enduring classic of British cinema, as well as a thoroughly engrossing piece of drama.

Film Synopsis

For almost twenty years, Andrew Crocker-Harris has worked diligently as a classics master at an English boys' public school.  A heart condition is about to force him into early retirement, although he has found a post at another school where his duties will be less onerous.  On the last day of term, Crocker-Harris comes to realise how little he has achieved and how much he is despised by both his pupils and his fellow teachers.  He knows that his wife also loathes him and has been having an affair with another man, but he cannot bring himself to end their loveless marriage.  As his sense of failure begins to overwhelm him, Crocker-Harris receives an unexpected gift from one of his pupils, Robert Browning's translation of Agamemnon...