Tom Brown's School Days

This work is primarily occupied with the major incidents in the life of Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby, and his overcoming of a good deal of resistance in lifting that institution from a tepid state to a position of England's finest public school. The strong direction is by Robert Stevenson, who also contributed mightily to the script, which is rather faithfully based upon the novel of the same name by Thomas Hughes, and which employs the student Tom Brown as Arnold's tactical and ethical surrogate within the scholastic body. Arnold, who must find an answer to the prevalent bullying of the day, is portrayed by Sir Cedric Hardwicke with a stunning performance, ably supported by Josephine Hutchinson as Mrs. Arnold. The film proceeds at a very crisp pace, with the scenario building well as Brown, played with feeling by Jimmy Lydon, prepares to make a stand against older and tyrannical students led by Billy Halop as Flashman. The arteries of the novel are presented with some depth, demonstrating the inculcation into the students of the importance of physical and mental courage, loyalty, and self-reliance, albeit apparently at the cost of some amount of intellectual achievement. The love of the students for Rugby and for their headmaster is presented throughout, the production design, costumes, and editing are all first-rate, and a superb musical score is contributed by Anthony Collins.

Jimmy Lydon plays the title character, but the point of view occasionally cuts away to Cedric Hardwicke as the radical and revered Thomas Arnold. Judging by this movie, his great innovation was to cast out liars and talk the Sixth Form into badmouthing bullying.

Even so, the performances are fine in a Code-compliant manner, with a solid juvenile cast including Freddy Bartholomew and Gale Storm in her feature debut. It's also director Robert Stevenson's first American movie. He would stay for the rest of his career and by the early 1970s would become the most successful movie director ever, if you went by unadjusted-for-inflation grosses of all his movies. He was not an auteur. He gave the producer and, it turned out, the audience what it wanted. At this point, he was becoming the go-to director for Ye Olde England movies. Like many a director, he retreated to TV in the early 1950s, but hooked up with Walt Disney in the latter half of the decade, and directed many of his gimmick live-action comedies.

In 1842 England, Rugby School students Jimmy Lydon (as Tom Brown) and Freddie Bartholomew (as Harry East) meet, after the death of beloved headmaster Cedric Hardwicke (as Thomas Arnold). The lads agree to "be friends again" as Mr. Hardwicke would have wanted… Then, in flashback, young Mr. Lydon recalls his education at Rugby, where he went to war with bullying Billy Halop (as Flashman) and his gang, ended his friendship with Mr. Bartholomew through misunderstanding, and watched as Hardwicke's Thomas Arnold (1795-1842) reform British education.

This interpretation of Thomas Hughes' classic "Tom Brown's School Days" isn't the most faithful to the book; but it's close enough for Hollywood, and the tightening makes it a finer film. The RKO production team does great work. They found the perfect director by importing England's Robert Stevenson. And, Anthony Collins' musical score is outstanding (he received "Oscar" nominations 1940-1942). It also helps to have Sir Hardwicke head the school, as he registers a British headmaster you can use as a standard. As a bonus, debuting Gale Storm (as Effie) makes heads turn.

The three youngsters are a nice surprise. Lydon handles his part exceptionally well; this could be his best juvenile lead. To great effect, they let Bartholomew act, and in a supporting role. And, Mr. Halop is a believable punk Brit. Coincidently, "Harry" is the first name given for the characters played by Bartholomew ("Harry East" in the original novel) and Halop ("Harry Flashman" in a spin-off series). So, it may be no wonder J.K. Rowling found it a perfect surname for "Happy Potter" of Hogwarts. By the way, this film will give you a sense of what those British Public Schools were like...

******* Tom Brown's School Days (6/27/40) Robert Stevenson ~ Jimmy Lydon, Cedric Hardwicke, Freddie Bartholomew, Billy Halop

Pinch-penny version of the oft-filmed fictionalized memoir (rushed out by RKO to pick up any GOODBYE, MR CHIPS backsplash) is remarkably clear-eyed in detailing the petty (and not so petty) sadism of British "public" schools, as well as its harrowing ostracism, despair & loneliness. Thomas Arnold's 19th century school reforms are alluded to, but neither dramatized nor properly integrated into the dorm dungeon life which the reliable director Robert Stevenson unintentionally(?) exposes. A good cast mixes real Brits like Cedric Hardwicke & Freddie Bartholomew with Yankee ringers who come off better than you might expect. Especially the Flashman, played by DEAD END kid Billy Halop, who makes a convincingly threatening top boy. Added bonus value: dig those musical lifts from Verdi's FALSTAFF in Anthony Collins' score. And you might want to try this out on a HARRY POTTER fan who wants to know where schools like Hogwarts come from. No quidditch field, but the school is called Rugby.

Sir Cedric Hardwick is superb as Doctor Arnold.

It is hard to over-estimate the importance of this headmaster in the history of education. Singlehanded, he revolutionised not only school discipline but also curriculum in one of England's oldest and most famous Public Schools. From Rugby the reforms spread out to Eton, to Harrow and to Winchester. The ideologies were carried by students of these colleges to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and out into the world.

To our modern eyes, the notion of a master whipping a student with a birch for fighting and expelling a boy for telling a lie seems a bit extreme. But prior to Dr Arnold, punishments were brutal and were administered in an arbitrary manner by each teacher. Boys were exploited by the masters, and junior boys were exploited by the seniors.

Hardwick's portrayal of Arnold as a dour, devout and almost obsessively righteous man is wonderful. Arnold hates bullying, but more than anything, he hates lies. Lies, to Arnold, are the mark of real cowardice. Where there are lies, there is Sin and Corruption. A boy that lied to Arnold was immediately expelled.

There is an aspect of Dr Arnold's reformation that is only hinted at- It was he who brought modern subjects such as History and Geography to the school syllabus, to stand alongside the Classic as valuable learning.

Jimmy Lydon is wonderful as Tom. His emotions, be they glee, grief, pain or loneliness are expressed in an irrepressible manner by this lovely boy with his mobile face and eager expression.