Short Takes: Sep. 21, 1992

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SNOOTY SCHOOL, SNOTTY PREPPIES, THE socially unenlightened 1950s. Sound retrograde enough for you? Wait until you see SCHOOL TIES. It even looks like the 1956 movie version of Tea and Sympathy and shares with it and other prep- school dramas a certain earnest didacticism. This time the sensitive schoolboy is not sexually suspect. He is a poor Jewish lad from Scranton, Pennsylvania, recruited to lead dear old St. Matthews to gridiron glory. David Greene (Brendan Fraser) does so, but when his religious affiliation is discovered, anti-Semitism, followed predictably by soul-searching, breaks out. The film is well meant and, in its old-fashioned way, well made and well acted. But one is always about two moves ahead of the plot, which is not exactly rich in new news.