In Mutiny On The Bounty I remember there's a scene where Charles Laughton is questioning someone about who did what. Someone else owned up to it and got a flogging. The guy who wouldn't rat got the same flogging because as Laughton put it, "when I ask for information I expect to get it."
That might have been a whole lot easier on poor Tom Brown who is played here by Jimmy Lydon. His father Ernest Cossart has sent him to Rugby School where the headmaster is Cedric Hardwicke who wants to raise manly and honest kids and not bullies.
But that's what young Tom is faced with by an older kid played here with relish by Billy Halop of the Dead End Kids. What to do, because the one thing that's worse than bullying is ratting out your fellow students.
Lydon stands up to Halop and actually beats him in a well fought if unofficial bout. But Hardwicke finds out about it and expels Halop.
Naturally this could only happen if Lydon ratted him out. Tradition dictates he be shunned and shunned he is. Especially by his roommate and previous benefactor Freddie Bartholomew.
These kids have an honor system that West Point would envy. And Hardwicke is a man rock bound in his principles and ideas. It all seems a bit silly, but in this day and age we're finally trying to address bullying in a real way. Although this film has its flaws it has assumed an interesting relevancy for today's kids.
In this all male setting some women have some good parts. Mack Sennett comedienne Polly Moran plays the owner of the potato shop where the kids get their 'Murphys' which is a rather unflattering reference to what was the national crop of Ireland and probably some Irish farmers worked hard so these kids could enjoy their treats. Gale Storm plays Moran's young daughter who no doubt gets the lads hormones working. And Josephine Hutchinson plays the supportive and kind Mrs. Hardwicke, supportive to the kids as well as her husband.
I'd see the BBC mini-series first, but this is not a bad film.
That might have been a whole lot easier on poor Tom Brown who is played here by Jimmy Lydon. His father Ernest Cossart has sent him to Rugby School where the headmaster is Cedric Hardwicke who wants to raise manly and honest kids and not bullies.
But that's what young Tom is faced with by an older kid played here with relish by Billy Halop of the Dead End Kids. What to do, because the one thing that's worse than bullying is ratting out your fellow students.
Lydon stands up to Halop and actually beats him in a well fought if unofficial bout. But Hardwicke finds out about it and expels Halop.
Naturally this could only happen if Lydon ratted him out. Tradition dictates he be shunned and shunned he is. Especially by his roommate and previous benefactor Freddie Bartholomew.
These kids have an honor system that West Point would envy. And Hardwicke is a man rock bound in his principles and ideas. It all seems a bit silly, but in this day and age we're finally trying to address bullying in a real way. Although this film has its flaws it has assumed an interesting relevancy for today's kids.
In this all male setting some women have some good parts. Mack Sennett comedienne Polly Moran plays the owner of the potato shop where the kids get their 'Murphys' which is a rather unflattering reference to what was the national crop of Ireland and probably some Irish farmers worked hard so these kids could enjoy their treats. Gale Storm plays Moran's young daughter who no doubt gets the lads hormones working. And Josephine Hutchinson plays the supportive and kind Mrs. Hardwicke, supportive to the kids as well as her husband.
I'd see the BBC mini-series first, but this is not a bad film.