The Plough and the Stars

John Ford made most of his films for Twentieth Century Fox and perhaps much of it was because the studio let the director do what he wanted. After all, he was a proved commodity--an Oscar-winning director with a great track record. But with this film he did for RKO, apparently Ford was NOT thrilled and even walked off...forcing the studio to finish the film without him due to creative differences. Ford apparently hated the final product.

I am not sure why Ford was so disenchanted with the project, but I would hazard to guess that at least some of his disgust was the decision to cast Barbara Stanwyck in the lead. Now I do not have anything against her...she was a fine actress. But the film is about Ireland and she sounds absolutely nothing like an Irish woman...nothing. Heck, Hattie McDaniel would have been about as convincing in this role! She couldn't even approximate the accent...and in most of the film she didn't seem to try. Her character was also extremely whiny...too much so. As for the other co-star, Preston Foster, he was much more convincing and was well cast. So for me, this was a HUGE strike against the movie at the onset.

When the film begins, you learn that Nora (Stanwyck) has hidden a letter that arrived for her husband, Jack (Foster). The letter was appointing him a leader in the Irish militia...and soon they would be involved in the infamous Easter Uprising. Well, Nora is NOT the patriotic sort and is actually rather selfish--and she later begs him not to join in the fighting and to reject his appointment. Jack is not about to do this, as he's a loyal patriot.

Much of the rest of the film is made up of the rebellion as well as its aftermath--most of which time Nora whines and complains and seems to care not one bit about her native land...which is pretty weird and pretty despicable. In fact, her character and performance were pretty awful and the film left me wanting to see her get killed or at least horse whipped. And, even more oddly, the film ends this way...with Nora whining and having no care about the deaths of others or her Republic. I have no idea WHAT the point of the film was...and I could see how audiences left confused and unsatisfied. A rather terrible film, actually...

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS, represents the director's anti-imperialist stance against the ruling British in Ireland. Although political in tone, both films have been filtered through the classical Hollywood consciousness; they refer as much to American conflicts (e.g. the Civil War) as Irish conflicts, with a protagonist struggling for freedom against the colonial power, as well as against pro-colonial forces within his own people. THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS stars Barbara Stanwyck; much of the action has been rewritten from a woman's film perspective, showing her struggling to survive in a world dominated by rebellion, in which her husband (Preston Foster) is committed to the cause of freedom - so much so, in fact, that he neglects her. But Ford is too clever to make any judgment; although sympathizing with Stanwyck's character, he makes it clear that her husband has to fight on so as to preserve his own integrity, as well as that of his own country. THE INFORMER and THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS are both packed with Abbey Theatre actors, including Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields (who were both Protestant, by the way, rather than Catholic as portrayed in the film) and more; they provide local color, as well as vivid illustration of how ordinary people coped with the experience of rebellion. Sometimes we wonder whether they have been cast to show off their Oirishness - in other words, conform to Hollywood stereotypes of the Irish character (garrulous, full of songs and fond of drinking). This is especially true of Fitzgerald's Fluther Good, who seems to have little involvement in the film's main plot, yet nonetheless has the chance to show off his (non-existent) pugilistic abilities. Nonetheless the film still packs a punch, despite its short running-time.

Set in Ireland during the 1916 Easter Rebellion, Barbara Stanwyck stars as Nora Clitheroe, the wife of Jack (Preston Foster), a former ranking member in the Irish underground. He's itching to get back into the fight, but he's promised his wife that his fighting days are behind him. Naturally, the call to arms becomes too strong, and as Jack heads back into the fray, Nora rages at his decision and the heartbreak of war.

Director John Ford basically disowned the finished film, claiming RKO had edited it into garbage. I don't think it's quite that bad, but it really isn't very good, either. Stanwyck is fairly awful, strident and struggling with her accent. Foster, who can be a compelling presence, is dull here. Brothers Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields, both making their first substantial appearances in an American movie, are what you'd expect. Fitzgerald's goofball character is meant to be the comic relief, but he's just irritating. The only performance that moved me at all was from Bonita Granville, as a young girl dreaming of a better life.

Made as a follow up to the hugely successful THE INFORMER, John Ford's much maligned screen version of THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS has long been regarded as one of his worst films.

I finally saw this film tonight, thanks to the wonderful Talking Pictures TV Channnel here in England.

My Iriish-born father loathed this film because he said it was a travesty of O'Casey's play and just a Hollywood fiction of the Easter uprising.

Well I read all the reviews here expecting the worst.

But, I was amazed to watch a print of this film that bore NO relation to that described in the reviews posted here! There was no newsreel footage interpolated, no unfortunate added narration whatsoever and no extra footage by other directors to explain the marriage of Stanwyck & Foster's marriage! What gives? What I saw was obviously a genuine John Ford film, beautifully directed and photographed, with many of his trademark camera set ups, close ups and scene compositions. His usual flair for narrative and the many subtle visual trademarks did not indicate a hatchet job by RKO.

The whole thing had an understated poetic quality and the pace and fluidity were striking.

So what was I looking at? A pre-release print that had somehow survived in the UK but not in the RKO archives in LA? It was certainly no turkey and even Stanwyck impressed me - her lack of accent did not matter, because Ford (in this print at least) let her face do all the acting for her. And she was great! Barry Fitzgerald was clearly doing a warm up for his role in THE QUIET MAN, but the remaining Abbey Players were all fine and I believe acted large portions of O'Casey's dialogue intact. I do not have a copy of the play to make a comparison but will seek it out.

Una O'Connor showed what a fine dramatic actress she was in Ireland before she found fame in Hollywood. Even Preston Foster demonstrated an impressive restraint and was highly impressive.

Ford did not have Max Steiner for this film (as he had on THE INFORMER and THE LOST PATROL) but Roy Webb did a fine job with a highly dramatic and vivid music score throughout.

But what of the source print? Are there really two extant versions of this film? If so, I think I watched the long lost "Director's Cut" tonight! How exciting!

John Ford is today primarily thought of as the director of Westerns, but these do not constitute the whole of his output. He was of Irish descent- his original name was John Feeney- and several of his films, including "The Plough and the Stars", reflect his interest in the affairs of his ancestral homeland. (Others include "The Informer", "The Quiet Man" and "The Rising of the Moon"; he was originally slated to direct "Young Cassidy" but had to withdraw owing to illness about three weeks into filming, and was replaced by Jack Cardiff, who was credited as director).

"The Plough and the Stars" is based on the play of the same name by Seán O'Casey. It is set against the background of the Easter Rising of 1916 when Irish Nationalists staged a rebellion against British rule in Ireland. (The title is derived from the "Starry Plough flag", a banner used by the nationalist movement). The central characters are Jack and Nora Clitheroe, a married couple who run a boarding house in Dublin. Jack is secretly a member of a nationalist militia, the Irish Citizen Army, and obeys their call when the Rising breaks out. Nora, however, is horrified; she loves Jack, and cannot bear the idea that he might be killed, even if he is fighting for a cause that he believes in. (She herself has always tried to keep aloof from politics).

Some reviewers on this board have been highly critical of Nora for not standing by her man and not standing by her country, but I feel that such reviewers miss the point of what O'Casey was trying to do. Although he was himself a supporter of the nationalist cause and had been a member of the ICA, he was not trying to write a narrowly partisan, propagandist play. He was well aware of the complexities of the political situation and of the fact that not everybody in the Ireland of 1916 had supported the Rising. In that year many Irishmen were in the British Army fighting in the First World War against Germany. (All of them volunteers- conscription was never applied in Ireland, unlike mainland Britain). Many of these men were Irish Unionists who supported the Union with Britain, but many were nationalists who nevertheless believed in the justice of the Allied cause and who believed that the best way to achieve Home Rule was to work with the British rather than against them. There were also many like Nora who held no strong political views but who recoiled from violence and from the possibility that their loved ones might die in a pointless uprising. O'Casey realised that any play about the Rising, if it were to be honest, needed to take account of all these viewpoints.

Ford wanted to make the film with the Irish cast who had appeared in the original production of the play at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. The studio RKO, however, insisted on using established American stars for the two leading roles in order to boost the film's box-office appeal, so Barbara Stanwyck and Preston Foster were cast as Nora and Jack. RKO also wanted to make changes to the plot in order to tone down O'Casey's left-wing views. (These views had made the play controversial in Ireland itself; when it was first performed in 1926 it led to a riot when conservative, middle-class nationalists in the audience took offence). His clashes with the studio led to Ford walking away and disowning the project, complaining that the studio had ruined the whole thing. The film was completed by another director, although Ford retained the directing credit. (There was no Alan Smithee pseudonym available in 1936).

Stanwyck's performance has been criticised, but although her Irish accent leaves much to be desired, she puts her lines across clearly and conveys the pathos of Nora's position. I didn't care much for Foster, however; his accent is no better and he often seems difficult to understand. The rest of the cast are something of a mixed bag, and I couldn't see the point of Barry Fitzgerald's Fluther Good, a drunken stage Irishman, unless it was to provide some sort of comic relief. It is a long time since I last saw O'Casey's play, but I remember it as a powerful piece of drama. We cannot know what Ford's film would have been like had the studio given him a free hand, but I suspect it would have been better than the film we actually have. 5/10.