Andrew Crocker-Harris (Michael Redgrave) teaches classics at an English public school. Stuffy and pedantic, he's universally loathed by his students, who call him "The Crock" and "the Himmler of the 5th level." Before retiring, Crocker confronts his failings: wife Millie (Jean Kent) has been cheating on him with fellow teacher Frank (Nigel Patrick), while his replacement (Ronald Howard) makes Crocker aware of his reputation. He does strike up an unlikely friendship with Taplow (Brian Smith), a precocious boy who reminds Crocker of the promise he'd long since abandoned.
The Browning Version mainly proves a tragic character study. Crocker is the opposite of movie teachers from John Keating to Jean Brodie. Completely devoid of charisma or empathy, he alternately bores and badgers his students to compensate for mediocrity. He'd failed in his efforts to translate Aeschylus; his marriage is a joke. Yet it shocks him to be compared with Himmler, and to learn his students mock him behind his back. So long as he believed he made a difference, Crocker tolerates his shortcomings; but at play's end, he hasn't even that straw to grasp.
Rattigan contrasts this pathetic soul with a scathing portrait of public education. Beneath the school's dignified atmosphere lies a hotbed of pettiness and resentment. One teacher departs from school to play cricket, being lionized by faculty and students alike. Rattigan doesn't elide Crocker's lack of pedagogic talent, yet shows Crocker positively created obsessed with money, status and sport. This is well-trod theatrical ground (Bolt's The Tiger and the Horse, Bennett's The History Boys) yet seems especially disturbing at grade school level. Students learning to place sport and advancement ahead of academics certainly hasn't gone away.
Michael Redgrave scores with his best film role. It's a tricky character: play up the bore too much, and Crocker's just a hateful simp. Play the sympathy card, make him too likeable, and he becomes a sentimental sod. Redgrave finds a perfect middle ground, underplaying the role with weary resignation and regret. Crocker becomes not only pitiable but almost tragic; in an inversion of Goodbye Mr. Chips, his valedictory address forces him to confront his failure.
Nigel Patrick (The League of Gentlemen) proves a perfect foil, a basically decent man who regrets his role in unraveling Crocker-Harris's delusions. Jean Kent plays Millie as a savage lady monster, seeming to relish humiliating Crocker. Wilfrid Hyde-White (My Fair Lady) plays an uncharacteristically nasty role, transmogrifying his velvety charm into cutting sarcasm. Brian Smith makes a familiar role, the overly wise kid, effective and poignant.
The Browning Version holds up well in its simplicity. I've not seen the 1994 version with Albert Finney, but this works well as a straightforward adaptation. Rattigan's plays are compelling enough without the exigences of "opening things up."
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