Moviecut—The Browning Version

source: The Browning Version

The Browning Version

Forced to retire from an English school, a professor disliked by his students and colleagues and despised by his wife, comes to the realization that his life has been a failure. Redgrave is superb as the stern, introverted professor, providing a finely nuanced portrait of a man who is proud and devoted to his job, but who also harbors regrets about his decisions in life. Also excellent are Kent as his cruel wife, Patrick as a sympathetic colleague, and young Smith as a kind student who feels sorry for the professor. This is an incredibly poignant film based on Rattigan's play. Veteran director Asquith pushes all the right emotional buttons but does not wallow in sentimentality.

Without a doubt, one of the best movies I've ever seen. This movie is a movie for today, it seemed fresh enough to have been shot in our time. Michael Redgrave's performance is amazing as the beaten professor, life deals him blow after blow and he keeps on going without a blink. You want him to scream, you want him to react, but he is simply too scared. Perhaps he's accepted his lot in life, but you want more for him. It was heart wrenching and I was left knowing I had witnessed a classic that would not be easily matched. I haven't seen a movie so moving since my first viewing 10 years ago. Highly recommended and it appears it's coming to DVD very soon!

Not a review...just an anecdote. My wife and I were preparing to attend a party and I turned the TV on as I was getting dressed. The Browning Version had just begun. I had never seen it but after a few minutes, found myself sitting on the bed, still watching. My wife came in to ask why I wasn't getting ready and I pointed to the TV saying, "This is a great movie and I have no idea what it is." She sat down and watched a few minutes to see what I was talking about. we never made it to the party. Emotionally engrossing with sterling performances. Very glad to see this finally coming out as a Criterion Collection DVD.

Michael Redgrave is wonderful in this film. To watch him in The Lady Vanishes, then to see him in this, it really is a testament to his acting versatility. The story itself is utterly depressing, and shows little remorse. Though this is why the film is so brilliant. The atmosphere mixes that of the school and that of the Greek tragedy - namely Aeschylus' the Agamemnon. Coker-Harris is slowly broken down by his wife, which is similar to that of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. However, Coker-Harris has not done much wrong to warrant this hate and spite, which makes him a sympathetic and tragic character. The film moves at a brisk pace and is not once boring. The acting is superb, the look efficient and makes for a superb film.

As the dry-as-dust, cuckolded public schoolmaster, dying of heart disease, yet heartless in the eyes of his pupils, Michael Redgrave gives one of the screen's finest and most moving performances in Anthony Asquith's superb screen version of Terence Rattigan's play. (Rattigan himself wrote the economical, precise and first-rate screenplay). The rest of the cast act in that arch, fastidious fashion prevalent in British films of the time, though that fine and under-valued actor Nigel Patrick breathes considerable life into the role of the adulterous but penitent science teacher while Jean Kent is superbly treacherous as the unfaithful wife. As a director, Asquith never really displayed much in the way of a visual sensibility, relying instead on the quality of his scripts but he still managed to make some of the best British films of the period, this being one of them. Although well-played the Albert Finney remake doesn't come close.

Based on Terence Rattigan's play, this is a moving story of a public (private) schoolmaster's disappointments as his life slips away from him, and his increasing sense of isolation from everyone around him as even his wife makes clear her bitterness towards him. Michael Redgrave's performance is masterfully poignant. The film was made in an era when the values inherent in the film still had considerable currency, helping the film to achieve a degree of authenticity which it is doubtful could be achieved today. (I have not seen the more recent version, though, so it may be that I am wrong). If you are interested in the human condition, or simply want to see a masterful portrayal of human pain then you should watch this film.

This is, quite simply, the Best One-Act play ever written, any time, any place; it's a Faberge egg with a Swiss movement and the fact that as I write, June, 2005, a French translation has just picked up a couple of Molieres is indicative of its wider appeal. It was Terence Rattigan who first identified and named the 'English Disease' as repression and he explored it in play after play such as Separate Tables and this one. A consummate scriptwriter as well as a Dramatist Rattigan handled his own adaptation and though he 'opened it out' a little he still maintains the tension and his dramatic skill is evident in every frame. Michael Redgrave is simply magnificent as the repressed Andrew Crocker-Harris, so much so, that he makes the excellent supporting actors, Jean Kent, Nigel Patrick, Wilfrid Hyde White, etc seem merely competent. This is a film that cannot be praised too highly