MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL (1948)

Hugh Walpole’s novel of misery in a second-tier British ‘Public’ School, atypically focused on staff rather than students, is so solidly constructed it easily survives the inadequacies of this plain-penny production.  (Hey, BBC/Masterpiece Theatre, mini-series waiting to happen here!)  Unfazed by a modest budget and studio-bound look, journeyman megger Lawrence Huntington is undone by a pair of missteps that move the time frame from pre-WWI to post-WWII without acknowledging social change; and by a casting decision that uses a heavily made up Marius Goring as elderly schoolmaster Perrin, who grows infernally jealous of popular new teacher, war hero and instant boys’ favorite Traill, played by David Farrar who looks great but in real life was actually four years older than Goring.  Even more than the time shift, the lack of age differential undercuts the heart of dramatic action.* And yet, even with these roadblocks, the internecine battles of hidebound school masters, the passive/aggressive sadism of Headmaster Raymond Huntley, hopeless romantic longings for lovely school nurse Greta Gynt as she gravitates toward the hunky Mr. Farrar, all these small personal tragedies played out in front of sad disappointed middle-aged/life’s-passed-me-by teachers in the common room, come across.  Plus that chorus of pubescent students eager to make fun of every sorrow & eccentricity.  Tremendously effective & often touching in spite of the flaws, especially when shards of humanity pierce thru the hard-shelled surface Goring’s Mr. Perrin has polished so carefully; abstruse and heartbreaking otiose.  Barely hitting 35% of potential, the film still packs an emotional wallop.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Easy to see where Goring falls short by imagining how Alec Guinness would handle the role thru his BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI characterization.  They even have the same final line of recognition come too late: ‘What have I done?’

DOUBLE-BILL: You can tell just how out of touch this film’s ideas on post-WWII boarding school must have seemed by watching Terrence Rattigan’s superb THE BROWNING VERSION/’51 which deals in many similar issues.  The Anthony Asquith 1951 version with Michael Redgrave, please.