The Last Days of Dolwyn

I find it incomprehensible that this gem of a film about a Welsh village doomed to be flooded by a new dam is available only in a less than pristine print. The current DVD is simply a transfer from a VHS tape (one reviewer said the version he taped off of TV looked better). You would think a film with Emlyn Williams, Dame Edith Evans, and featuring the first screen appearance of a 23 year old Richard Burton would be a prime candidate for the "Criterion treatment" but so far nothing, not even in England. The picture quality on this release is good to excellent but the soundtrack needs to be cleaned up. You can hear everything but it takes a little effort.

I first saw this movie back in 1980 when I was living in the historic city of Charleston, SC. From the opening shot of a vast lake with the top of a church steeple rising out of it, I was hooked. I didn't recognize Richard Burton at first as he was so young. His voice hadn't matured yet and he spoke as much Welsh as he did English. In fact one of the pure delights of the film is that so much Welsh is spoken even by Edith Evans whose accent blends right in with Burton's and a young Hugh Griffith as the village minister. Welsh author-director-star Emlyn Williams (THE CORN IS GREEN) does a remarkable job in all three roles. He is not as well known today as he used to be but he was a major talent which is fully on display here.

The story is set in 1892 and deals with the impending flooding of a small Welsh village to provide water for a neighboring English county. The man behind the project (Williams), a former villager, is working for the power company but has reasons of his own for wanting to see the village inundated. The townspeople are of two minds. Some want the money and jobs promised but others don't want to move to Liverpool. Edith Evans is heartbreaking as the village elder who doesn't want to see the town disappear. Burton is one of her two sons. Although the outcome is known, the ending comes as a real surprise. I was bewildered by it as the plot twist seems highly improbable. Despite that, the depiction of village life is poignant and the Welsh language poetic and beautiful. Now all we need is a first class restoration...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

The Last Days of Dolwyn is a thoughtful and moving film, which conveys its main purpose expertly. The storyline is a simple one, and concerns the flooding of a small welsh village to provide water to the inhabitants of certain towns in Lancashire, England. Emlyn Williams completes a tour-de-force as writer, director and star of this film. On all three counts he does exceptionally well, and it was no surprise that he went on to become a famous showbiz personality. His portrayal of the arrogant and selfish agent is particularly noteworthy, and he is the perfect villain of the piece. In fact, the whole cast is top notch, and there isn't a dud performance to be seen. This top quality ensemble playing does greatly enhance the film, as does the typical welsh valley scenery. However, a special mention must be made of that great actress Edith Evans, who gives a magnificent performance in the lead role. She demonstrates the art of acting at its very best, and undoubtedly brings that extra special touch of quality to this film. It's not an easy film to track down, but is well worth the effort if you can see it. Highly recommended.

The Last Days of Dolwyn is an interesting minor drama set in the valleys of Wales. It is set in the 1890s, and details the events that lead up to the deliberate flooding of a village in order to create a new reservoir. Some of the villagers are excited about the prospects being relocated once their village has gone, while others wish that they could carry on living where they do.

The acting throughout this film is superlative, including a young looking Richard Burton making his film debut. However, the dramatic aspects of the story are rather low key, almost to the point where they don't work. The climax should be really exciting, since it deals with a handful of people who find themselves trapped in the village in the minutes before it is due to be flooded, yet the sequence fizzles out without making much of an impact.

The Last Days of Dolwyn is worth watching for the acting, and the lovely Welsh settings. But if you're wanting a strong emotional story thread, this film simply doesn't provide it.

This Welsh tale is one of the great British postwar films, made with love and passion by a variety of leading figures of Welsh background or descent. It was written by Emlyn Williams, who also played a lead role in it, and it was the only film he ever directed in his long career as actor, playwright, and screenwriter. Until the age of 12, Williams lived in a small Welsh village where only Welsh was spoken. By a quirk of fate, his innate talent and ability were discovered and he got a scholarship to Oxford, thereby escaping a life of drudgery and being catapulted into the world of the arts. He was one of the most famous Welshmen of his day, and died as late as 1987. Having not appeared in a film since 1916, the great British stage actress Edith Evans (later Dame Edith), decided in 1949 to work in the cinema again. She had dominated the London stage for several decades, and was 61 years old. Evans is a Welsh name, and presumably, though born in London, Edith Evans was attracted to this Welsh story because of her own heritage, and also because hers is the lead role in the story. The result was probably her greatest film performance, in which she spoke rather a lot of Welsh very convincingly. She plays a widow who is a humble cottager in the village of Dolwyn. Her only child died twenty years before, and she adopted two boys, played by Richard Burton and Anthony James. This was Burton's first film role, and he speaks a great deal of Welsh in the part. As most people know, Burton was of humble and significantly ethnic Welsh origins just like Emlyn Williams, who became his close friend and mentor. The minister in this film is played by another Welshman, Hugh Griffiths, a beloved character actor for many decades in Britain. The film was produced for British Lion by Anatole de Grunwald, who wisely let the talented team get on with it undisturbed, and do their Welsh thing without interference. I knew the continuity girl, June Faithful, many years later, when she was still working as a continuity girl. She was very highly thought of and she struck me as being extremely devoted to her work. I go out of my way to mention her credited job on this film because it is not listed in her credits for IMDb for some reason. I hate for people to go unacknowledged. I have no idea whether she was related to the much younger actress and singer Marianne Faithful (born 1946), but assume not, as I have never heard it mentioned. This film has a very powerful dramatic twist to it late in the story. For much of the film, however, the idyllic life of a small Welsh village of 1892 is portrayed in great detail. As one would expect with the Welsh, who never stop singing, there is a great deal of that. There is a boy who minds the sheep whose fine tenor voice is heard throughout the story, and he sings while the town is flooded because he cannot bear to leave. We see the waters rising up his legs, but his tenor voice rings out, singing in his native Welsh as if his heart would burst. Let no one underestimate the importance of singing to the Welsh. The Methodist chapel culture is well portrayed, with fiery sermons in Welsh and everyone in the village attending, then the men withdraw to the pub to discuss the sermon afterwards. Women are not allowed in the pub because 'it would be a scandal for a woman to be seen in the pub'. At crucial moments in the story, all the villagers join in singing hymns spontaneously. If anyone thinks that is sentimental nonsense, think again. The traditional Welsh were like that, and much of it still survives. My wife and I have driven into an obscure Welsh village and stopped because we heard the distant sound of a heavenly choir, followed the sound, and found a church full of Welshmen singing their hearts out in rehearsal for a forthcoming local concert. They do that, they really do, and they need little encouragement to burst into song in Wales, where they lack the English diffidence. The story of this film is about a rich man who returns from London, where he has made his fortune, to Dolwyn from which he had been expelled at the age of 12 for stealing money from the church, driven out of town in fact by people throwing stones at him. He has seethed with offended pride and violent hatred of the villagers ever since. He has now returned to wreak his vengeance upon them, like Ingrid Bergman in THE VISIT. In concert with an English peer, he has bought up most of the village so that he can flood it with water from a nearby dam and eradicate from the earth the scene of his youthful humiliation. But Edith Evans, who plays a simple village woman of no pretensions, and who has never travelled more than a few miles from her village in her lifetime, stands in his way. The scenery may be pastoral and quaint in the extreme, but the conflict is one of life and death. This is a film resonant with meaning and relevance for our own time, more than for 1949 when it was made. After all, one cannot but think of all those poor people uprooted because of the Three Gorges Dam in China.

Richard Burton's first film and Dame Edith Evans before her smash hit in Wilde's "Earnest"(and after establishing herself in the theatre and knighted), plus a wonderful cast of supporting characters and an atmosphere of solid strength of morals and ethics which only British films can evoke so memorably on celluloid.

This movie is a gem because it seeps into the deepest crevices of our hearts by a subtle interplay of mood and character study where words fail and acting skill take over.

'The Last Days of Dolwyn' is highly recommended. If you have the chance see it.