getting there…

Movie review:

To Serve Them All My Days

There is an utterly familiar plot line in To Serve Them All My Days (TV mini series, 1980-1981, 11 hours, 13 minutes): a Welsh coal miner’s son survives World War I, and becomes a teacher at a boys’ school in England south of Wales, and grows in his role to become the beloved avuncular headmaster.

John Duttine energetically plays the protagonist, David Powlett-Jones. Everyone calls him “P. J.” or “Pow-Wow,” with love and respect.

P. J. quite remarkably discovers that his calling, his life’s work, is with the faculty and boys at Bamfylde School. He judges everything from this perspective.

Much of the tale is an unfamiliarly rich creation of manifestly human characters who deal with the slings and arrows of life, and make the best of their worlds to give willing, deserving boys a good education and a glimpse of how to live a decent life.

The dialogue is above average in many scenes, and you will get inside the minds of the key players. There is enough reflection and imagination and longing and joy/despair for any discerning viewer.

No spoiler alert is needed here. You can’t possibly be in doubt about how the story ends.

In this story, getting there is the point of the journey.

Based on the 1973 novel (same title) by R. F. Delderfield.

* * * * * *

Book review: The Snow Goose

…it’s sensual drama, eminently poetic…

by Paul Gallico

click here

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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”