The Quare Fellow

The Quare Fellow is directed by Arthur Dreifuss who along with Jacqueline Sundstrom co-adapts the screenplay from the Brendan Behan play. It stars Patrick McGoohan, Sylvia Syms, Walter Macken and Dermot Kelly. Music is by Alexander Faris and cinematography by Peter Hennessy.

Thomas Crimmin (McGoohan) begins new employment at a Dublin jail firmly believing in the benefits of the death penalty. Not everyone of his colleagues feels the same, though, and as Crimmin works through his time and gets close to the wife of a condemned man, his beliefs are splintered.

The play by all accounts was awash with humour, something which this filmic version considerably lacks. Dreifuss prefers to make the film bleak, both in surroundings and via the characterisations. The prison is perpetually cold and grey, smiles are hard to find within these walls, cynicism and fatalism drip from the wrought iron doors, and of course moral compasses are all over the place. This doesn't make it a bad film, not a bit of it, it's a tough drama acted superbly, with some brains and brawn injected into the script. Yet it ultimately plays its hand as a straight forward anti-capital punishment peace, missing opportunities to expand upon hinted at themes, particularly where Syms' fraught wife character is concerned. Still, it's a must for McGoohan and Syms fans and for those who like gritty pics set in prisons. 6.5/10

"The Quare Fellow" is a 1962 film starring Patrick McGoohan and Sylvia Syms. Based on the play by Brendan Beehan, it is not faithful to the source. If you know the play, you will probably be disappointed.

McGoohan plays Thomas Crimmon, a new guard at a prison - he's young, devoted to the law, and believes in his work. He soon finds his belief challenged. He meets a woman, Kathleen, (the beautiful Sylvia Syms) with whom he becomes smitten almost immediately. She is trying to get her husband a stay of execution and not having much luck. It turns out that she and Thomas live in the same rooming house, and the two are attracted to one another. She appeals to him to help her get a stay- will he? Thomas goes to a senior guard, Regan (Thomas Macken) to ask for his help and guidance.

This is a hard-hitting film about capital punishment. It shows men digging the grave, the hangman going in to see the prisoner as someone else so he can observe the size of his neck, etc. It's pretty gruesome stuff.

The entire atmosphere is depressing. The performances are wonderful. McGoohan, whom most of us know as an assured, smart man, here is young and naive. He is excellent. Syms is compelling as Kathleen. Thomas Macken as Regan is a real standout as a humanitarian guard who has seen too many hangings.

"The Quare Fellow" - and quare means a man about to be executed - is not a film to watch if you're feeling down. It's a strong indictment against capital punishment and very well done. But watching a movie that takes place in a dank prison, a bar, and cheap lodgings where people talk about death makes for a real downer. Still, it's a good movie.

I made the mistake of expecting this film to be pretty faithful to Brendan Behan's play. Instead the moviemakers added so much as to lose very much the play's essence. I gave the movie a 6, because what they did do was decent otherwise. But please, go watch the play live or else read it.

This is a grim realistic drama of life and death at a prison in Ireland, where we meet the prisoners and their warders and a wife of one of the prisoners, with also priceless scenes from a nearby pub, which actually offers the best scenes of the film - the prison, like all prisons, isn't quite cheerful. But you get into the minds of the prison warders, and that is psychologically very interesting, as none of them is sadistic or cruel at all. On the contrary, executions are the worst thing they know, and the action of the film is from the times before executions were cancelled in England. Sylvia Syms and Patrick McGoohan both make very sensitive parts, and especially Sylvia Syms' performance is outstanding. It's a drama growing more exciting the longer it lasts, and the outcome isn't very funny, but there is actually nothing else to do.

Maybe many of viewers and audiences in general will find this movie bland, flat, maybe of the so British or Welsh accent, sometimes hard to understand, even for American folks.... But the story is unusual, showing prison from a warden, guardian pint of view, instead of the inmates one. It is talkative but rewarding. This scheme, topic made me a little think of THE APPRENTICE, made in 2016, a movie from Singapour; a very close story, though not exactly the same either. Adapted from a play, Patrick mc Goohan is good for my taste, but I would have also imagined Stanley Baker in this role. A bit depressing too, and I like that.