The Hills of Donegal

I loved this film. It's a good thing I didn't read these reviews before watching, but went by the quality of the cast. It had everything a melodrama should have and included wonderful singing to boot!

Eileen Hannay (Dinah Sheridan) is the singing star of an Irish operatic society but gives up to marry Terry O'Keefe (John Bentley) who, we soon discover, is something of a ne'er-do-well. Unbeknown to Eileen, Terry had been involved with Carole Wells, another singer in the society who had loaned him some money. Peeved at him now marrying Eileen she tells him to pay up, take up again with her or suffer the consequences. Meanwhile Terry and Eileen return to her late parent's run down estate in Donegal to start married life but thanks to Terry's intolerance of the local Romany's (Eileen's mother was a gypsy), his fondness for drink and pressure from Carole, things start to fall apart.

I could best describe this film as a very modest drama-cum-musical with a dollop of schmaltz here and there, particularly in scenes featuring the boy Paddy. In other words the hackneyed plot has a bit of everything in it yet probably appealed to a 1940s audience. With an operatic society and gypsy encampment featured, there are excuses for musical interludes of an Irish flavour but they don't blend in well with the action, rather they appear to be there just to prolong the film.

This was John Bentley's first film and he went on to become a stalwart of many a British second feature films particularly in the 1950s and often on the side of the law so it's unusual to see him play the 'baddie'. Dinah Sheridan was already a veteran of some dozen films by this time and she gives a competent if unspectacular performance but she does look lovely. We do, thankfully get some light relief in the form of Moore Marriot who seems to be reprising his popular character Harbottle from the Will Hay films albeit with an Irish accent.

All in all, a film of its time with curiosity value only.

A shame, but quite a good ensemble cast of British stage actors just can't inject anything to alleviate the ennui created after about ten minutes of this rather unremarkable melodrama. Dinah Sheridan is a successful chanteuse who inherits a ramshackle estate in Ireland - which her husband John Bentley (who has quite a bit of debt) wants her to sell. She doesn't want to, and soon allies with local lad James Etherington; much to the chagrin of her increasingly broke/jealous husband. Tamara Desni and Irene Handl co-star with some fun ceilidh music and dancing but it's all just a bit too old hat with a suitable silly ending.

Only saw 10 mins of this. The 20 yr old Eileen Hannay, star of film, reminded me., in beautiful looks, compassion and sharpness of mind, of my mother who at that exact age, 20, would have been in Donegal constantly visiting relatives from her Derry home. This was 2 years before she met my father, who came here as a sailor from outside of Ireland. Eileens very young brother Patrick , 7 reminded me of my mothers brother, Patrick, who was also 7 in 1947, when they were all living in great poverty, and went on to become a great Priest. I was particularly charmed by the warm relationship between "older sister" Eileen, 20, and very young brother, Patrick, 7. And Gypsy Daniel, ~ 19, was a passable similarity to my other uncle, then also about 19, in 1947. But there was not a single Donegal accent in the film, and only half the cast had even a remotely Irish Accent . And no, no-one in Ireland EVER says "Top of the morning to ya". Nevertheless. Like all films , this 1947 film is of its time, hence is a priceless portrayal of what the establishment wanted to portray of their culture at that time, I will watch the full film of Talking Pictures ever screens it again or i get a chance to see it elsewhere. Time ( it being 4.30am) prevented me from seeing the full film this time.

This fascinatingly awful film begins ominously with a village square full of singing villagers obviously shot on a soundstage. Fortunately I correctly anticipated that it was to turn out be a stage production in front of an audience; but when leading lady Dinah Sheridan arrived back in the Old Country with new husband John Bentley it turns out to look just as unreal and studio bound.

Irene Handl and Moore Marriott are in it, but along with Tamara Desni's elegant Other Woman tend to take a back seat to the boringly melodramatic central narrative (although Marriott does get to sing, unfortunately), until things are wrapped up very suddenly and very violently.

(The biggest surprise that the film offers is that if Bob Arden, the actor playing soulful young gypsy Daniel seems familiar, as Robert Arden he later played the hero Guy Van Stratten in Orson Welles' 'Confidential Report'.)