Tom Brown's Schooldays

Master Howard Davies (later a successful BBC producer who worked on the early Monty Python series) may be a precursor of the Mark Lester school of terribly English moppetry, but he doesn't detract too much from this soldily carpentered third screen version of Thomas Hughes' famous Rugby story - atmospherically shot on location in the old school itself. Newton restrains himself admirably as the ultimately good-hearted headmaster, but it's Forrest's show as the caddish bully Flashman, dispensing ignominy with a curl of the lip and a dash of hauteur before his eventual and not unexpected comeuppance.