DUPONT SHOW OF THE MONTH: THE BROWNING VERSION (TV)
Summary
One in this series of irregularly scheduled dramas. Sir John Gielgud makes his American television debut in this live television adaptation of Terence Rattigan's 1948 play about a classics teacher forced into retirement by a heart ailment who must re-evaluate his life. Set on the last day of term and Andrew Crocker-Harris's final day at the English public school at which he has taught for the past eighteen years, the play recounts the series of humiliations -- from his wife's adultery, to the trustees' refusal to grant him his pension, and the headmaster's decision to deny him the privilege of addressing the graduating class last at the school's prize-giving ceremonies -- that lead Crocker-Harris to stoically accept the fact that he has been a failure in both his marriage and in his academic career. A pedant, dubbed "the Himmler of the Fifth Form" by his students for the strict discipline he maintains in the classroom, Crocker-Harris teaches his final Latin class before retiring to the less stressful duties of teaching younger boys at a "Crammer." Strict even on this last day, Crocker-Harris catches one of his students, Taplow, in a lie. A once brilliant scholar, Crocker-Harris has lost the inspiration and spark that once made him want to communicate his enthusiasm for the literature of the past to his students. Emotionally repressed and unable to satisfy his frustrated wife Millie's great need for physical love, he has silently acquiesced while she has had a series of affairs with his colleagues, including the popular science master Frank Hunter. Crocker-Harris's shell of emotional reserve is shattered, however, when Taplow brings him a going-away gift -- Robert Browning's verse translation of "The Aenid," made more meaningful by Taplow's moving inscription. But Millie destroys even this glimmer of pleasure when she dismisses the gift as an act of appeasement by the student to get a good grade. Includes commercials.
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: April 23, 1959 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:30:00
- COLOR/B&W: B&W
- CATALOG ID: T81:0999
- GENRE: Drama
- SUBJECT HEADING: Adultery; Drama; She Made It Collection (Jacqueline Babbin)
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV series, 1957-1961
- COMMERCIALS:
- TV - Commercials - Dupont Chemical Research
- TV - Commercials - Dupont Explosives
- TV - Commercials - Dupont Plastics
- TV - Commercials - Dupont products
CREDITS
- David Susskind … Producer
- John Frankenheimer … Director
- Terence Rattigan … Writer, Based on the play by
- Jacqueline Babbin … Adapted by, Adapted for television by
- Audrey Gellen … Adapted by, Adapted for television by
- John Gielgud … Cast, Andrew Crocker-Harris
- Margaret Leighton … Cast, Millie Crocker-Harris
- Cecil Parker … Cast, Mr. Frobisher
- Robert Stephens … Cast, Frank Hunter
- Rhoden Streeter … Cast, Taplow
- James Valentine … Cast, Gilbert
- Iola Lynn … Cast, Betty Carstairs
- Donald Moffat … Cast, Fletcher
- Carson Woods … Cast, Barstow