The Browning Version (1951)

Released in 1951, Anthony Asquith directed The Browning Version, a British drama of manners and a perfect one at that. Not one moment, word, or syllable is wasted; every element works together to construct and elucidate the whole. Michael Redgrave masterfully plays the dry-as-dust British schoolteacher Andrew Crocker-Harris (Crock to his students), facing the day of his retirement as well as a series of critical realizations. Jean Kent is his much younger, scornful, cheating wife who thinks her affair and plans are secret and safe. (Since this is 1951, there is no sex but one kiss, which was probably scandalous at the time.) The title of the movie refers to a pivotal gift received by Crocker-Harris, a teacher of the Classics (Latin and Greek): the Robert Browning version of his life's study, Aeschylus' poem Agamemnon. Simultaneously, we discover that he abandoned writing his own scholarly edition of the poem some years ago -- and seems to be unaware of a number of details in the poem that parallel his own life's challenges. Asquith's The Browning Version presents itself as economically yet as lyrically as John Huston's The Dead. If you appreciate the classics, definitely do not miss this one! 5 stars.