On one level this is a rollicking tale of life in an English Public School (other nationals may need to remember to read "Private" for "Public" here.) during the reign of King William IV in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is a well acted and well directed film that most people would find enjoyable to watch, but because of the specialised and unfamiliar scenario it is unlikely to attract audiences from outside those who themselves attended similar schools or those with some form of interest in the history of education.
At a slightly deeper level we must recognise that this film is essentially a remake of a film with a very similar title (Tom Brown's School Days rather than Tom Brown's Schooldays) released ten years earlier. Both films featured Rugby school under the headmastership of the famous educationalist Thomas Arnold - a part played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke in the earlier film and by Robert Newton in this remake - and both were based on the book of the same name written by Thomas Hughes in 1857. It is very hard to discuss one of these films without referring to the other, and since there is no point in duplicating comments on this IMDb database I would recommend anyone reading this page who is sufficiently interested to refer also to my comments on the earlier film. This second version of the story is much more melodramatic than the previous one, but is less in keeping with the original book, and I feel that it probably reflects life as it was in Rugby school at the time less accurately. The climax of the book is Arnold expelling the school bully Flashman for breaching the school moral code. This later film is slightly longer than its predecessor and in it Flashman's behaviour is shown as so reprehensible that the viewer can have no sympathy for him, whereas in the book and the earlier film Flashman is simply a typical bully who is caught out for lying. This is important because it causes the viewer to reflect on the magnitude of the task of creating a school code of conduct strict enough to justify this expulsion. For these reasons, whilst I can watch and enjoy both these films almost equally, I regard the 1940 film as the better, and as more worthy of repeat viewing. For the IMDb database I have also rated it slightly higher than the present one (six out of ten rather than five out of ten).
