Tom Brown of Culver

"Tom Brown of Culver" is more confusing than it needs to be. The main character, named Tom Brown, is played by an actor named Tom Brown ... but he clearly isn't playing himself. Were Universal Studios planning to build up Tom Brown (the actor) with a starring vehicle? The fact that this movie's plot vaguely resembles that of Thomas Hughes's coming-of-age novel "Tom Brown's School Days" only adds to the confusion.

Tom Brown (the fictional character) is a Hoosier lad who takes any work he can get, to help his widowed mother. Tom's father "Doc" Brown was killed in action during the Great War, when Tom was an infant. Tom has nothing to remind him of his father except his Congressional Medal of Honour, awarded posthumously.

The local American Legion post sponsor Tom's induction into Culver Military Academy. Tom has no interest in a career as a soldier, but he accepts the posting so as to get free room and board. At this point, I expected the film to enter "Tom Brown's School Days" territory. But instead...

SPOILERS COMING. ...the film veers sharply into melodrama with an unexpected plot twist. Tom's father has been alive all along. "Doc" Brown (an overacting H.B. Warner) deserted under fire, trading his military I.D. with that of a battlefield corpse. Shell-shocked, a nervous wreck ashamed of his own cowardice under fire, it has taken "Doc" Brown all these years to work up the nerve to seek out his son and his "widow". By this time, Tom has been instilled with a sense of military honour and duty. He knows that his scholarship to Culver is due to his father's heroic war record. When he learns that his father was actually a deserter, Tom knows that he must resign from Culver. But then he gets a surprise...

Tom Brown (the actor) gives a stand-out performance as Tom Brown the cadet; I regret that he never again got a role as good as this one. Much of this movie was actually filmed at the Culver Military Academy, and the authenticity greatly enhances the movie.

The script avoids all of the most obvious old clichés, but replaces them with some brand-new clichés. The plot about the long-lost father is ridiculous. A subplot concerning Tom's room-mate and an actress (named Dolores Delight!) goes absolutely nowhere. Richard Cromwell is excellent as the room-mate, and there are several other fine performances by young actors (including Tyrone Power and Alan Ladd in small roles). The young actor who plays underclassman Carruthers (in another subplot that goes nowhere) is extremely impressive.

Comedian Slim Summerville gives one of his best performances, in a serious role that gives him one very funny line about a lady named Annabelle. Lew Kelly (a vaudeville monologist) is hilarious in a brief scene that seems to belong in some other picture. The film begins with a sincere dedication to America's servicemen. I liked everything about "Tom Brown of Culver" except its ludicrous script. I'll rate this movie 6 out of 10.

If this movie were made nowadays, I can imagine the ad campaign: "Tom Brown **IS** Tom Brown!"

Though it might not sound like it, "Tom Brown of Culver" is about some military school lads, mainly Tom Brown, who is played, interestingly enough, by Tom Brown. Brown goes from the fight ring into military school on scholarship because his father was a war hero. After a tough time, he goes on to be an excellent cadet, only to meet a man he never knew, his father, and comes to grips with his father's secret.

This is a fairly good melodrama, though clichéd by today's standards, and is especially interesting for the appearance in a small role of 17-year-old Tyrone Power. Alan Ladd is also in the film, but I didn't spot him the first time around. What's fascinating about Power's appearance is his eyebrows. Film lore has it that his boss at Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck, turned him down a few years later because of his distractingly long, large eyebrows, and it was only Mrs. Zanuck who convinced her husband to give the young man a chance. Zanuck loved telling these stories on himself - that he refused to give Clark Gable a contract because of his ears, that his daughter told him about her young friend, Elizabeth Taylor, and he ignored her -why he wanted everyone to think he wasn't good at his job is anyone's guess. The fact is, Power's eyebrows are exactly the same as ever in this film and were the same in photos of him as a child and as an movie usher in Cincinnati. Why would he want to draw them to meet across his nose on the day of a screen test? I guess Zanuck thought these little stories of just stumbling along made him more interesting as a studio head.

Eyebrows aside, there are some very nice performances in this movie from Brown, Eugene Palette (uncredited), Sidney Toler, Richard Cromwell, and Ben Alexander. H.B. Warner, as Tom's father, is clearly from another era - his acting style is over the top, but he is still effective. I have to go back and see if I can find Ladd.

William Wyler directed, and Tyrone Power IV's middle name is William in honor of Wyler, so Power was grateful for the break. However, it didn't lead to anything at that time. He left Hollywood for Broadway and returned later to great stardom, despite his eyebrows.

Nobody ever WINS the Congressional Medal of Honor. Nobody in their right mind "competes" for such Valor that usually ends in death.

One is a RECIPIENT of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and that is how it is properly stated. We had a banquet with all living MoH Recpients who could make it to Buena Park, California in about 1990. Some of the most humble men you will ever meet. Not one felt they "deserved" the MoH. But they showed true "Valor Above and Beyond the Call of Duty, Without Regard to Their Own Life or Safety".

When someone says "Wins the MoH" it is like "nails on a chalkboard", since not one person in all the years it has been bestowed has "Won" it but instead Received it from a Grateful Country.

Interestingly conceived but erratically realized mixture of melodrama and documentary as the American Legion pays for a scholarship to Culver Military Academy for Tom Brown in honor of his Medal-of-Honor-winning father. The script is a little too neat and episodic, however, and apparently the young actors were not up to Wyler's 90 takes to get the scenes right, so some of the scenes are a bit misjudged. Watch for an incredibly young Tyrone Power Jr. in his screen debut and an uncredited and very funny cameo by Eugene Palette.

Tom Brown Of Culver is a story about a young man and his experience at Culver Military Academy. In the title role of Tom Brown is an actor who is named Tom Brown. During his career Brown suffered the same problem as Mickey Rooney, his short stature and youthful appearance kept getting him cast as kids well into his thirties. He also didn't have quite the talent of a Mickey Rooney.

Brown as Brown is a role that Mickey Rooney would have feasted on at the other end of the decade. Brown's a knock-around kid literally during the Great Depression, earning a living boxing. When at Slim Summerville's hash house he brings out his father's Congressional Medal of Honor, in one of those movie coincidences, it turns out Slim was a sergeant in his father's outfit. The father was a doctor who was later killed in action when an artillery shell hit the field hospital in World War I.

Through the efforts of Summerville and some officers from the Academy, the American Legion sponsors young Tom at the Academy. After this the film becomes a Boystown like odyssey for young Mr. Brown.

Among the cadets are Alan Ladd who is an extra and if you look hard you might spot him. Another with a couple of speaking lines is Tyrone Power, IV. Ty is billed that way because in fact he was the fourth actor with that name. It was his sound screen debut and he was three years away from Darryl Zanuck signing him as the number one box office attraction for the new studio of 20th Century Fox.

There is one other actor who has a key role in the film, H.B.Warner. But the plot is such that if I talk about his role it spoils the whole film. His performance as a shell-shocked veteran though is a good one.

Like Boystown where Mickey Rooney has a visit from a family member that puts him in crisis, so does Tom Brown Of Culver. The ending though is resolved a little too neatly. The army does not work with that kind of speed.

Still a chance to view a pair of movie legends at the beginning of their careers might prove an irresistible temptation to view Tom Brown Of Culver.