Young Cassidy

Two scenes, but one of them is the best of the whole movie:the mother's death.The camera only shows the hero when he enters the fateful room;we see the tragedy on his face longer than usual before the camera reaches the deathbed.There's a similar scene in JF 's "three godfathers" when the outlaws meet the dying mother in her wagon.The second scene is the fight in the pub which recalls "the quiet man" .

As for the lead,Ford wanted Sean Connery but he was too busy playing OO7.The female parts are strong,featuring Flora Robson,Maggie Smith and Julie Christie ,but the latter only appears for a few minutes.A lot of colorful characters ,from the stingy heartless undertakers to the "keep cool boy" grocer,from the old lady mixing with the riffraff by welcoming the playwright's committed dramas to the obscure librarian ,give the movie substance.

These two scenes and "Seven women" two years later were John Ford's swansong.

"Young Cassidy" is a film about the life of the famous Irish writer and dramatist, Sean O'Casey. It follows him from around WWI to his becoming famous, of sorts, in the late 1920s. Oddly, as you watch the film you'll probably assume it all takes place over one or two years...but 15 to 20 is more like it...and the actors and time never seem to pass.

The story was originally to have been made by John Ford, which isn't surprising due to his love of all things Irish in his movies. It follows O'Casey (Rod Taylor) from working as a day laborer to his becoming a hated dramatist, as you see one of his plays being booed and attacked by many.

I gave this movie a 6 because it tries hard and offers some nice moments. But it was a hard sell to me because the film made O'Casey seem like a bit of a jerk and I really didn't have all that much interest in him and his life. I am not sure if it's because O'Casey was a jerk or just because of the screen play. I just found myself not caring much about him or his life.

Interesting biopic of O'Casey - named John Cassidy here - based on the pre-exile, Irish part of his life. The cast is very high-powered and the cameos by Michael Redrave (as W.B.Yeats) and Edith Evans (as Lady Gregory) are superb - as is a young Maggie Smith as O'Casey's girlfriend. Julie Christie looks great, but doesn't have much to do. Rod Taylor is surprisingly good in the main role, but I feel it suffers a little from the change of director, and is ultimately unsatisfying, rather rushing towards its conclusion. It could have been a great movie, but the pacing is off. For me, the 60s Dublin locations are the real stars.

I thought I was going to see a Western, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a movie that actually got me to learn about something. Apparently, I had a glaring hole in my college education because I had never heard of Sean O'Casey until I watched this movie. AND I TOOK AN IRISH history class. That class unfortunately was all names and dates and timelines...this movie along with a Internet search on this movie told me more about O'Casey than that 3-credit course at a major university. Yeats loved him so that was enough to make me wonder why. I did a quick Internet search and you can read about O'Casey many places. I really found this article the most interesting though: www.threemonkeysonline.com/article2.php?id=279

This is a very typical example of good English film-making. It depicts the early life of writer Sean O'Casey; his struggle to become an established writer and his lust for women. John Ford started the direction, but he fell ill during the shooting and Jack Cardiff took over. None of this shows in the picture however. I think Rod Taylor gives his finest performance of his career in this movie; notice his good Irish accent. As a bonus you can see Julie Christie, who starred in a role in one of her first movies,and this was a teaser of what was to come. Flora Robson and Maggie Smith also appear with impeccable performances, as always.