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Sunday, November 15, 2020

TERM OF TRIAL (1962)

Never fully comfortable in his occasional film work, stage-oriented director Peter Glenville unexpectedly handles the visual side of things quite well here, much helped by the rough-hewn, working-class cityscape cinematography Oswald Morris provides.  Instead, he’s felled by a screenplay without a credible moment in it . . . his own.  It’s high school drama, peopled with prim teachers and wild misbehaving kids, British ‘Juvies’ arriving on screen a decade after their American cousins.  Laurence Olivier, coiffed with the floppiest hair of his film career, is the numbingly naive teacher unable to stay disruptive punk Terrence Stamp challenging his authority or infatuated flirt Sarah Miles (transparent as Saran Wrap) breaking his personal space.  And more on his plate, from dissatisfied wife Simone Signoret to a smart bullied school kid doing himself injury, even a promotion that's slipping out of his grasp.  Glenville, unable to juggle these storylines into a semblance of order, keeps things moving by having Olivier turn a blind eye to every insult, rule infraction or romantic pass.  Finally getting into enough trouble to be brought to court on a charge of gross indecency.  How ‘bout charging him with gross stupidity?  Quite the waste of talent here.  Worse, a relentless tone of misogyny toward debuting Miles and in a trick twist ending with Olivier ‘playing’ his wife. 

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Perhaps if Olivier’s temptation came from Stamp rather than Miles, things might add up dramatically.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: While not exactly better, five years on, TO SIR, WITH LOVE/’67 got closer to the mark on changing British mores & milieu in the classroom.  OR: To see this sort of teacher going thru it, Michael Redgrave’s classic, blisteringly interior perf, in Terrence Rattigan’s quietly gasp-inducing THE BROWNING VERSION/’51.

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