Term of Trial

At this point in his career Laurence Olivier was doing rather more stage work than film. Term Of Trial came between Spartacus and Bunny Lake Is Missing and those two other films were five years apart. This film according to the Citadel Films Series Book on the Films Of Laurence Olivier was one strictly for the money as he was acquiring a new wife and family at the time.

This film ought really to be seen back to back with To Sir With Love. Olivier is the same kind of inner city school teacher that Sidney Poitier was, but hardly as charismatic. This man he portrays, Graham Weir, maybe the saddest character Olivier ever played. He was a pacifist during World War II and went to prison for his beliefs and his employment opportunities are limited. Olivier can't get into the really good schools to teach and he's not advancing in this job. But on that side of the pond as well as here, good teachers are hard to find for inner city schools. The Sidney Poitiers don't come along every day. And Olivier is also a functioning alcoholic.

Olivier is also married to former bar maid Simone Signoret who is about as supportive to him as Peg Bundy is to Al. One of his adolescent pupils finds him attractive because he shows he cares more about her than the parents she has. On a school trip to Paris, young Sarah Miles makes a move on him and when he rejects her, she goes to the police and Olivier finds himself in the dock at Old Bailey.

This film was the debut film of Sarah Miles and Terrence Stamp who plays a young tough who Miles rebounds to after Olivier rejects her. Simone Signoret's scenes are few, but they really count though in terms of the plot for the life of me I can't see how she ever hooked up with Olivier. She's quite the lowlife.

One of my favorite character actors Hugh Griffith is also here as Olivier's lawyer. He has a beautifully played cross examination scene with Miles as he rips her to shreds. And matching Simone in the slattern department is Thora Hird as Miles's mother who is a real piece of work.

Although this will never be listed at the top as one of Laurence Olivier's best work. Olivier and the rest of the cast provide some good moments.

Graham Weir (Laurence Olivier) is a teacher with a criminal record for refusing to fight in the war. Both his work and his marriage to Anna (Simone Signoret) is a struggle. He starts tutoring student Shirley Taylor (Sarah Miles) who develops a crush on him. Mitchell (Terence Stamp) leads the school bullies.

I would have liked more of this story told from the girl's point of view. That would show her progression and her reasoning. I want a deeper character than an unstable hormonal teen. Sarah Miles is twenty and that does take the sting out of the teenager role. Hayley Mills would be a more interesting choice. Quite frankly, Lolita came out right before this movie and that would siphon off any heat from the similar subject matter. As for Graham, he's too careless which frustrates me. This subject is as relevant today as ever. It is however not as daring as it could be.

A thrilling and compelling story that we think is going to be simply a young girl who has a crush on her teacher and then rejected it looks as if we will be on for most of the film of a trial of a charge of indecent assault. Yes and no, but this is a wonderful and a very complicated tale about the man the woman and girl. Never having seen this before it turns out that Sarah Miles, I always love, is brilliant and her first film, going on to The Servant (1963) and Blow-Up (1966). Laurence Olivier always good and was in-between The Entertainer (1960) and Bunny Lake is Missing (1965) two of my other favourite films. Simone Signoret is, of course, usually brilliant and now as this one and on with two of her best Casque D'Or (1952) and Diabolique (1955). Then there is Terence Stamp as the school bully and more, in his first role although he would go on with The Collector (1965), Modesty Blaise (1966) and Poor Cow (1967) and all of them I love. It is hard to pick the best out of the four actors because they are all splendid and the story is excellent so it is almost two hours and exceptional.

The main character of this film is bleak dreariness on the verge of utter hopelessness, It is supposed to be one of those shabby northern English industrial cities, but the film was actually shot in Dublin. You never see any sunshine in this environment, and the only relief of the film is the class excursion to Paris, which constitutes the dramatic turn of the drama, when young Sarah Miles in her first great role introduces her serious advances to her poor middle-aged childless teacher, who never was able to defend himself, and least of all against a pretty girl, who seriously means business. His wife Simone Signoret, always superb, looks through the young wench at once but tolerates her all the way, until she falls on her own fallacy. The only villain is the young Terence Stamp in perhaps the nastiest role of his life as a young insolent delinquent and sexual maniac. The acting is superb, Hugh Griffith crowns the performance as an unforgettable lawyer, and the only objection against the film would be against its dismal dreariness. They are all stuck in the trap of the humdrum desolation of their dreary city of second class discomfort and will never find a way out of it.

While this film will earn no plaudits from the Me Too crowd (and justifiably so, in my opinion) and the last ten minutes are a bit too plot twisty for my taste, this remains an insightful character study of a weak, alcoholic secondary school teacher with appalling judgment as well as a powerful examination of a rather sick marriage. Director Peter Glenville will never be confused with Richard Lester in the pacing department but damned if the usually too theatrical fellow does not keep the proceedings moving at a fairly good clip. The result is, in my opinion, Glenville's best film as well as the finest work Olivier has done on the screen, post "Entertainer". Plus you have Simone Signoret at her most gloriously disillusioned and bitter, Sarah Miles, in her film debut, giving a quite convincing portrayal of an unstable girl in love with a much older man, and Terence Stamp essaying a truly loathsome bully/punk. And maybe because it is based on a novel you have some very memorable subsidiary characters, as well, like Thora Hird's nasty working class mom, Dudley Foster's cold ass police detective and Hugh Griffith's go for the jugular defense counsel. Finally, the cinematography by Oswald Morris is so wonderfully kitchen sink that even Paris looks grimy. Give it a B.