It's interesting that this Anthony Asquith directed movie is set in a Britain placed very securely in the era where and when his own father H H Asquith was the actual Prime Minister of the country, being in the early years of the Edwardian era just before the outbreak of the First World War. Indeed, although Asquith Sr isn't personally represented in the film, his government, which also included notables like Lloyd George and Winston Churchill features significantly in the action as the drama unfolds.
Adapted by the then celebrated playwright Terence Rattigan from his own successful stage play, the movie is an examination of the British legal process, class system and perhaps most of all the British sense of fair play, free speech and the right to a fair trial under the Magna Carta.
All hell breaks loose when a teenage boy, the youngest son of a respectable middle-class, middle-aged, just-retired bank manager, is expelled from the Naval Academy for the theft and encashment of a postal order owned by another student. Rather than accept the official navy line condemning his son, the father chooses to believe his son's denial of his alleged crime and hires the country's top defence lawyer (and Opposition M. P.) to act for his son in a court case against the Admiralty which is sticking by its original expulsion of the boy.
I have lately been enjoying other Asquith / Rattigan collaborations but this one I didn't think was as successful as others I've seen. The play's the thing, the Bard once said but while I appreciated the various character studies and underlying premise of the film, I was disappointed with the final outcome of the film. With the Winslow case attracting nationwide attention even at a time of impending war and major social reforms, the scene is apparently set for a cliff-hanging courtroom climax, which is then meekly sidestepped with the crucial verdict being delivered off-camera. Then to compound the matter still further, there's the rather silly implication of a future romantic involvement between the cold fish defence counsel and the older daughter of the Winslow household who has just been dumped by her weathervane fiancé, whose father won't brook the shame of the associated scandal. We're also never told the truth of exactly what did happen as regards the forged postal order which caused all the fuss in the first place.
Which is a shame because it was all percolating along nicely up until that point, bolstered by fine performances by Robert Donat as the boy's defender in court, Margaret Leighton as the suffragetist daughter and especially Cedric Hardwicke as the stubborn father determined to believe and stand by his scapegoat son.
There have since been brought to light many other well-documented miscarriages of justice in British legal history which rather undermines this particular story proclaiming the "let right be done" credo. For me, however, it seemed a pity that the dramatic tension effectively built up throughout the bulk of the movie was rather dissipated by a poorly conceived resolution in the end.
Adapted by the then celebrated playwright Terence Rattigan from his own successful stage play, the movie is an examination of the British legal process, class system and perhaps most of all the British sense of fair play, free speech and the right to a fair trial under the Magna Carta.
All hell breaks loose when a teenage boy, the youngest son of a respectable middle-class, middle-aged, just-retired bank manager, is expelled from the Naval Academy for the theft and encashment of a postal order owned by another student. Rather than accept the official navy line condemning his son, the father chooses to believe his son's denial of his alleged crime and hires the country's top defence lawyer (and Opposition M. P.) to act for his son in a court case against the Admiralty which is sticking by its original expulsion of the boy.
I have lately been enjoying other Asquith / Rattigan collaborations but this one I didn't think was as successful as others I've seen. The play's the thing, the Bard once said but while I appreciated the various character studies and underlying premise of the film, I was disappointed with the final outcome of the film. With the Winslow case attracting nationwide attention even at a time of impending war and major social reforms, the scene is apparently set for a cliff-hanging courtroom climax, which is then meekly sidestepped with the crucial verdict being delivered off-camera. Then to compound the matter still further, there's the rather silly implication of a future romantic involvement between the cold fish defence counsel and the older daughter of the Winslow household who has just been dumped by her weathervane fiancé, whose father won't brook the shame of the associated scandal. We're also never told the truth of exactly what did happen as regards the forged postal order which caused all the fuss in the first place.
Which is a shame because it was all percolating along nicely up until that point, bolstered by fine performances by Robert Donat as the boy's defender in court, Margaret Leighton as the suffragetist daughter and especially Cedric Hardwicke as the stubborn father determined to believe and stand by his scapegoat son.
There have since been brought to light many other well-documented miscarriages of justice in British legal history which rather undermines this particular story proclaiming the "let right be done" credo. For me, however, it seemed a pity that the dramatic tension effectively built up throughout the bulk of the movie was rather dissipated by a poorly conceived resolution in the end.