Universal-International
Directed by Anthony Asquith
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Criterion Collection)
A middle aged teacher at an English school comes to grips with his impending retirement. As he trains his replacement, he realizes the boys mostly make fun of him for his reserved manner and iron hand on the classroom, nicknaming him "Himmler". Meanwhile, his wife is his polar opposite: young, beautiful, outgoing and, apparently ignored. She is having an affair with the science teacher, which, it turns out, her husband has known about all along. He explains his disinterest as loving her on another level. Anyway, he gets passed over for a pension, then almost embarrassed at the school assembly. Instead, he ends up giving an impromptu speech to the student body which gets him a standing ovation. His final confrontation with his wife and her lover leads to more surprises. Superbly acted by all of the leads, but can be rather slow, and spends too much time on romantic subplots.
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