The Luck of Ginger Coffey

The author Brian Moore once said he preferred to write about life's failures since like Tolstoy's happy families successes tend to resemble each while failures are always failures in specific ways.

Robert Shaw in the title role as a garrulous Gaelic dreamer definitely qualifies in this adaptation by Moore of his own novel, in which the black & white photography of Manny Wynn vividly evokes the setting of a wintry Montreal.

Providing a good reminder of the time when director Irving Kershner occupied a niche making eclectic independent features long before he ultimately joined the 'A' list, it also has a haunting score by Bernardo Segal who would work with Kershner again on 'Loving'.

Robert Shaw is an Irish immigrant to Canada who's at a low point. Wife Mary Ure (his wife in real life) has had enough. He blarneys his way into an ill-paying job as a proof reader on a newspaper, and blarneys his wife into staying a little longer. But eventually she gives up and leaves. He holds onto his daughter, and gets a job as a delivery man for a diaper service, but his grandiose self-worth keeps getting in his own way.

It's a kitchen-sink drama with fine performances by the leads, and a first opportunity as a leading man for Shaw. He makes the most of it, and director Irvin Kershner gets some fine compositions out of the snowy Quebec location shooting. The story is a constant barrage of low-key misery that it soon becomes wearisome. With Liam Redmond, Tom Haarvey, and Leslie Yeo.

When this film first appeared in 1964 I was a child of 11, newly arrived in Montreal myself from the (then) small city of Edmonton Alberta. Montreal was the 'big cosmopolitan city' , where men were men, and women were goddesses. And so they were. Even I, a small gorfy kid, got my first wolf whistle on those very streets before I was 13.

I wanted to see this vision of that time, even if in black and white, because my Montreal included only b&w TV at that time, even though Montreal was a collage of colors, snow & more snow. And this film IS my Montreal, complete with bilingual signs, belching buses and the beginnings of the English/French conflict that would eventually send me fleeing to English Toronto.

Within my own family, there were Irish, English, Polish immigrants and more - my father was French Albertan, my mother Quebec English - truly Canadian, we epitomized the Silent Revolution. Clinging to my Irish/English background, I understood the prejudices immigrants knew.

Robert Shaw is brilliant as Ginger. He is the quintessential immigrant convinced that life in Canada will be the bright future he deserves. His wife, Vera (Mary Ure) is the terrified woman who has followed her husband's dream, but longs for home. His daughter Paulie is me - scared and defiant in a new world.

Ginger can't find a good job' he's hampered by the lack of a proper college degree since he ran away to War instead of finishing school. He also believes that his age and experience qualify him beyond a training position, as he feels he's quite capable of positions above his actual education and experience. He may be right, but his employers disagree. In the one instance where his natural instincts and intelligence unite to shove him above the average, he's too particular to even see that he's found his own niche.

The story of one man's struggle in the New World is not unique; Brian Moore's belief in the essential optimism of the Irish character lifts this small tragedy to a greater good. Despite the apparent spiral into despair and alcoholism, the ending suggests that there is hope, that Ginger and Vera will persevere, and that Ginger's inherent belief that "Life is in the Living" will pull all of them through this struggle to a future that may not be of their dreams, but will be sufficient to take them to a better world than they could have hoped for in Dublin.

Ginger Coffey's story is not a tragedy, it is a monument to the people who came to Canada and the US to raise the bar for those lucky enough to be born in these countries. It's a lesson for all of us who take our birthright for granted, who will never understand what it's like to be a "Stranger in a New Land".

If you are lucky enough to see this film, most likely on television, take a moment to remember the time, and the circumstances, before political correctness allowed every Canadian and American, born or newcomer, to a piece of the pie we call the North American Dream.

Ginger Coffey (Robert Shaw) moves with his wife, Vera (Mary Ure, Shaw's real-life wife) from Dublin to Montreal, to make a new life for them and their daughter, Paulie (Libby McClintock). This film chronicles their struggle to gain acceptance, in a New World which doesn't immediately recognise Ginger's potential and leaves him to work at menial jobs to support his family.

Mary Ure made very few films during her short life, mainly working in the theatre, but here she is excellent as the worried wife who wants only the best for her family. As Ginger, Robert Shaw is excellent and fairly restrained when you compare this film with his later work which became something of self-parody. Montreal is also represented in an honest way within this film - it is a New World which has hope and opportunity, even as its immigrant population face their own problems and overcome them.

Little-seen these days, this black and white sixties gem is underrated and deserves wider exposure.

As the title character, Robert Shaw delivers one of the most affecting performances in his accomplished career. Best known for his scene-stealing in Jaws, ("So, eleven hundred men went into the water. Three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the twenty-ninth, nineteen-forty five...), Shaw gives his heart and soul as Ginger Coffey, a Irish immigrant who comes Montreal in search of his pot of gold. Easily the best depiction of the cold winter streets of urban Canada, the pie-eyed idealism of Coffey both infuriates the audience and endears the character to them. A rare find, if you get the chance to see this gem, don't let it pass you by. This film makes us dream about an albeit mythical time where "...all men had reached the top of the hill; there were no dull jobs, no humiliating interviews, no turndowns; no man was saddled with ungrateful daughters, there were unlimited funds to spend..you were free."