DVDs:

	Tom Brown's Schooldays Jeremy Baker (III), Anthony Wilkins Acorn Media, 2005 average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Thomas Hughes, who studied at Rugby in the 1830s under the educational reformer Dr. Thomas Arnold, this family drama stars Anthony Murphy in an Emmy®-winning debut as Tom with Iain Cuthbertson (Gorillas in the Mist) as Dr. Arnold.

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A wonderful series returns.

I remember this series from over 30 ago and have been looking for it. It is a wonderful coming-of-age story for those who love the genre. The acting is not as well as I remember and neither is the photography. But Richard Morant as the villain Flashman does a superb acting job and it is he who I remembered the most. Perhaps it should have been he who won the Emmy, although Anthony Murphy was outstanding also. It is amazing the young actors did not continue with distinguished acting careers, but young actors are all too often quickly washed up.


EXCELLENT ADAPTATION

This was a part of the Masterpiece Theater series. Anthony Murphy was delightful in the title role. I was amazed to learn that he'd no prior acting experience. His Tom Brown was noble, egalitarian and polite, though combined with the normal cheekiness of a teenaged boy. The supporting cast was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed this adaptation of Thomas Hughes' novel....highly recommended.

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Great for young boys

Our grandsons just loved the account - as did we - of this valient, principled boy. He survives and overcomes the hardships of a boarding school riddled with bullies and rather careless supervision. I suspect the good lessons here will benefit them for a long time. Content wise - great. All around, far superior to the other movie versions.


Engaging Victorian melodrama

I was excited to see this title being released on DVD, as I have fond memories of watching it as an 11-year-old with my father when it first aired on "Masterpiece Theatre" in 1973. I was also concerned about how well it would hold up, having been frequently disappointed upon revisiting some of my favorite childhood films as an adult. Well, this one held up just fine, not only for me but for my own 11- and 9-year-old children.

The story is your average Victorian potboiler: young Tom foils the nefarious doings of a wealthy landowner, who tasks his son Gerald Flashman (a schoolmate of Tom's) with obtaining revenge by any means necessary. A parallel and related plot thread deals with the reform efforts of new school headmaster Dr. Arnold, who earns Tom's trust. My kids enjoyed, as I did on that long-ago first viewing, finding out whether Tom would triumph over the bully Flashman, and insisted on watching all five episodes in one day. (As avid "Harry Potter" fans, they found parallels between the characters and relationships of Tom/Flashman/Dr. Arnold and Harry/Draco/Professor Dumbledore. I have to agree that J.K. Rowling might have read Tom Brown once or twice.) I focused more this time on the production values, the performances (young Anthony Murphy won a deserved Emmy as Tom), and of course the memories that were brought back to me.

On the downside, some of the other child performances are pretty awful, and the back-and-forth jumps between film (for exterior scenes) and videotape (for interiors), which was common to "Masterpiece Theatre," are irritating. Still, this miniseries is highly recommended, particularly if you're a sucker for British period pieces (as I am).

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Beautiful screenplay but not faithful to the book

This screenplay contains some brilliant character acting, but the characters have been subtly - and sometimes crudely - changed from those in the original novel. Much new content has been added (and much left out), and the whole second half of the book entirely omitted.

Flashman is very well played, but his violent father is introduced as a trendy "explanation" for Flashman's nastiness. Dr Arnold (the headmaster) is a beautiful characterisation, but in the original novel he never had to deal with the problem of five boys per bed (perhaps that idea was lifted from Dickens?). As for Tom Brown himself, he is simply marvelous (and what a lovely accent) - but not at all the complex character of the original novel, who was nearly expelled until the responsibility of supervising a younger boy brought out the best in him. Here Tom is lovable and angelic throughout - and when he does call the gamekeeper "velveteens", is hardly believable.

A moving and entertaining screenplay - but not a film to watch if you are going to be tested on the book!

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reviews: page 1, 2

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