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| Based on the novel. It wasn't as obscure as I thought it was. |
I just sat through a public domain British boarding school movie about a middle aged teacher who's jealous of the popular new young teacher. I didn't pay close enough attention to know which was Mr Perrin and which was Mr Traill. They get into a physical fight over an umbrella. The younger fellow just out of the Army won that round. He gets engaged to the school nurse the older fellow was secretly in love with. The old teacher confronts the younger one. Perhaps unwisely, they built the school near a cliff overlooking the ocean.
The older guy has a knife he took away from a twelve-year-old. The younger teacher backs up slightly and falls through the railing. He lands unconscious on the beach.
"Ah! Good! The old guy triumphs!" I thought.
But no such luck. The tide is coming in and the younger guy is about to drown so the old guy climbs down the cliff at great personal risk and inconvenience and saves his good-looking rival only to drown in the ocean himself.
A non-incestuous Oedipal fantasy. These are more common than that "hero's journey" nonsense people are still talking about. Stories about a younger man trying to replace an older one usually qualify. Look at Shane or half the episodes of Star Trek where Captain Kirk fights for control of the Enterprise.
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