Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 06/28/2005
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 89 Minutes
Flags: Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: Criterion
Michael Redgrave gives his greatest performance as
Andrew Crocker-Harris, a boarding-school teacher who realizes that his life may be a failure, in this powerful adaptation of
Terence Rattigan's play with a screenplay by
Rattigan himself. Poor health forces
Crocker-Harris to give up his teaching position after years of thankless service and scorn from his students and colleagues. His marriage to
Millie (
Jean Kent) is also in free fall, as his wife is openly having an affair with the school's chemistry teacher,
Hunter (
Nigel Patrick). The sensitivity of one student (
Brian Smith) breaks through
Crocker-Harris's reserved British exterior, but it takes the final departure of his wife, right before the school's graduation exercises, to wake him up once and for all. He discards his prepared speech and speaks openly to the assembled students, delivering a moving apology for having failed them as their teacher. The film's rich montage of incident and character detail builds to intense emotional heights that make this version of
The Browning Version a classic.
~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
