If Tom Brown's Schooldays was the first Robert Newton movie you ever saw, you'd find it unbelievable that he'd ever play a villain. He plays the kindhearted, gentle, soft spoken headmaster of a boys' school, and he repeatedly shares tender moments with students who are bullied, like John Howard Davies and Glyn Dearman. You'd never believe three years earlier, Robert Newton played a fiercely frightening Bill Sykes and tormented John Howard Davies as the title character in Oliver Twist!
John, yet again an endearing hero, is different from his scrawny, disheveled role in Charles Dickens's classic. In this story, he's dressed in beautiful clothes and sent away to a classy boarding school, but even though he's befriended by the young John Charlesworth, an older student John Forrest is a terrible bully. The film follows a couple of years of Tom Brown's Schooldays, and while Robert Newton advocates slow, steady change, the boys try to stand up for themselves.
One pretty cute element of the movie is the familiar cast members. Not only were Bobbie Newton and John Howard Davies reunited from Oliver Twist, but John Charlesworth, Michael Hordern, and Hermione Baddeley were all in A Christmas Carol the same year! I wonder why John Howard Davies wasn't cast as Tiny Tim in that version, as he would have been cuter-not to mention tinier-than the boy who was cast. John Howard Davies only made four movies, and John Charlesworth wasn't exactly propelled into stardom after his eventful year; after seeing their performances in this movie, I can't understand why they weren't the talk of the town.
If you like stories of schoolboys banding together against the bad guys, you'll probably like this story. I'm curious to read the original novel, and I wonder if the story continues after the film's end. I would have loved to see a sequel! The acting in this movie is very good, and even I-whose heart is not often softened by children-got a lump in my throat more than once.
John, yet again an endearing hero, is different from his scrawny, disheveled role in Charles Dickens's classic. In this story, he's dressed in beautiful clothes and sent away to a classy boarding school, but even though he's befriended by the young John Charlesworth, an older student John Forrest is a terrible bully. The film follows a couple of years of Tom Brown's Schooldays, and while Robert Newton advocates slow, steady change, the boys try to stand up for themselves.
One pretty cute element of the movie is the familiar cast members. Not only were Bobbie Newton and John Howard Davies reunited from Oliver Twist, but John Charlesworth, Michael Hordern, and Hermione Baddeley were all in A Christmas Carol the same year! I wonder why John Howard Davies wasn't cast as Tiny Tim in that version, as he would have been cuter-not to mention tinier-than the boy who was cast. John Howard Davies only made four movies, and John Charlesworth wasn't exactly propelled into stardom after his eventful year; after seeing their performances in this movie, I can't understand why they weren't the talk of the town.
If you like stories of schoolboys banding together against the bad guys, you'll probably like this story. I'm curious to read the original novel, and I wonder if the story continues after the film's end. I would have loved to see a sequel! The acting in this movie is very good, and even I-whose heart is not often softened by children-got a lump in my throat more than once.