Director
Vincente Minnelli
Leading Actors/Actresses
Deborah Kerr, John Kerr
Supporting Actors/Actresses
Leif Erickson, Edward Andrews
Genre
Drama
Language
English
Awards
Won 1 Golden Globe: Most Promising Newcomer - Male, John Kerr
Date of Release
1956
Producer
Pandro S. Berman
Setting and Context
1950s America at a prep school for boys
Narrator and Point of View
POV is that of Tom
Tone and Mood
Serious and Dramatic
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonists are Tom and Laura. Antagonists are Bill, Herb, and the machismo boys at the prep school.
Major Conflict
Tom is new to a prep school where he is in his senior year. He is not like the other boys who enjoy roughhousing, sports, fantasizing about girls and idolize Bill, their coach. He comes to find comfort and friendship with Bill's wife, Laura.
Climax
Laura falls in love with Tom who is very much like her first husband who was killed in WWII. She sleeps with Tom and years later Tom has written a book about his experience at the prep school and with Laura. He returns to find that Laura has left Bill and that she has continued to care for him.
Foreshadowing
Laura meeting with Tom often foreshadows their love affair to come.
Understatement
It is understated that Laura will leave Bill.
Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques
N/A
Allusions
The film is an allusion the the era of the 1950s and the representation of what it is to be a man in a world run on the false bravado of a machismo culture. There is very little substance and a lot of aggression, which motivate the culture while simultaneously poisoning it as well. Tom is the antithesis to this with his life representing meaning and hope for what it is to be a man in the world.
Paradox
Tom is sensitive and enjoys different things in the world. The paradox is that people believe this to personality mean that he is effeminate, when he is not.
Parallelism
Tom leaving school parallels Laura leaving Bill. They both yearn for deeper, more meaningful things in life than those that are expected of them.
