The Browning Version (1951)
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88% of critics liked it
(17 reviews) -
94% of users liked it
(683 ratings)
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… More 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, Rovi
- Directed By
- Anthony Asquith
- Genres
- Drama, Classics
Unrated,
- In Theaters
- Mar 13, 1951 Wide
- On DVD
- Jun 28, 2005
- Studio
- Criterion Collection
Critic Reviews
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Variety Staff, Variety
The role of the retiring master is not an easy one, but a prize in the right hands. Michael Redgrave fills it with distinction.
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Tom Milne, Time Out
Worth watching for Redgrave's powerfully detailed performance as the schoolmaster.
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Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
What begins as an anti-Goodbye, Mr. Chips ends, thanks to some psychological point stretching, as an imitation of it.
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Bosley Crowther, New York Times
The schoolmaster to whom our pity is drawn is a pretty weak and lukewarm individual, hardly fit to be a teacher of growing boys -- even a teacher of classical languages, which he is.
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Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
It's a blues pic for teachers that lays down some hope in the end.
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Cast
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Michael Redgrave
as Andrew Crocker-Harris
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Jean Kent
as Millie Crocker-Harris
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Nigel Patrick
as Frank Hunter
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Wilfrid Hyde-White
as Frobisher
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Brian Smith
as Taplow
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Ronald Howard
as Gilbert
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Bill Travers
as Fletcher
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Ivan Samson
as Lord Baxter
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Josephine Middleton
as Mrs. Frobisher
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Peter Jones
as Carstairs
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Sarah Lawson
as Betty Carstairs
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Harold E. Scott
as Rev. Williamson
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Judith Furse
as Mrs. Williamson
