Frankly, I was bored by the tiresome plot about an upper class British boy who is accused of petty theft (five shillings) and "sacked" from school, much to the annoyance of his stern father (SIR CEDRIC HARDWICKE). It was a letdown. I was expecting too much after first reading the comments on this film. The smallness of the theft and the social class distinctions that were obviously meant to be pointed out with a sub-plot involving Hardwicke's daughter, were not sufficiently engrossing for me to care about the outcome.
ROBERT DONAT doesn't even enter the film until the first forty-five minutes and then his character behaves rather oddly and seems cold and distant. Donat, by the way, was already beginning to show faint signs of the illness that he suffered all his life--the asthma that gave his voice a nasal tone seemed to be affecting his health long before he made his last film.
MARGARET LEIGHTON is the chief bright spot in the tale and FRANK LAWTON is effective as her not so wealthy suitor. NEIL NORTH is excellent as the Winslow boy at the center of the story--but it's a long-winded, talky tale taken from a stage play by Terence Rattigan and could easily have been trimmed for the movie version.
The ending is somewhat disappointing in that we don't see the Donat's actual triumph at trial. Instead, the British maid, overwrought with emotion, comes tearfully into the living room with news of the verdict and gushes for five minutes about all the happenings before we close with an ending that suggests Donat may have an interest in seeing Leighton again. This implication was the only clever touch in the screenplay's rather limp ending.
Sorry, this very British melodrama was not my cup of tea. Director Anthony Asquith seemed to have a feel for courtroom dramas. WILFRID HYDE-WHITE has a brief moment, an actor later used in the director's 1959 version of another British courtroom drama, LIBEL. But his skill as a director was sorely tested by this material.
ROBERT DONAT doesn't even enter the film until the first forty-five minutes and then his character behaves rather oddly and seems cold and distant. Donat, by the way, was already beginning to show faint signs of the illness that he suffered all his life--the asthma that gave his voice a nasal tone seemed to be affecting his health long before he made his last film.
MARGARET LEIGHTON is the chief bright spot in the tale and FRANK LAWTON is effective as her not so wealthy suitor. NEIL NORTH is excellent as the Winslow boy at the center of the story--but it's a long-winded, talky tale taken from a stage play by Terence Rattigan and could easily have been trimmed for the movie version.
The ending is somewhat disappointing in that we don't see the Donat's actual triumph at trial. Instead, the British maid, overwrought with emotion, comes tearfully into the living room with news of the verdict and gushes for five minutes about all the happenings before we close with an ending that suggests Donat may have an interest in seeing Leighton again. This implication was the only clever touch in the screenplay's rather limp ending.
Sorry, this very British melodrama was not my cup of tea. Director Anthony Asquith seemed to have a feel for courtroom dramas. WILFRID HYDE-WHITE has a brief moment, an actor later used in the director's 1959 version of another British courtroom drama, LIBEL. But his skill as a director was sorely tested by this material.