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Stage Door Theatre, San Francisco; May 19, 1965. Perfect venue for such things; an East Side art house in a West Coast town. I truly enjoyed every minute of this movie that night, and I still love it today. Rod Taylor was the ideal choice for the lead role in this always interesting vision of early life and career of Irish playwright Sean O'Casey, from his autobiog.

Dublin in the 1920s, with all the period feel and detail John Ford and Jack Cardiff could muster, beautifully photographed in Color and on location by Ted Scaife.

A splendid cast brings the days of O'Casey and the Troubles to vibrant and bitter life. Taylor's best work in many ways, though he did so many good movies and gave so many good pefs in his heyday, it's hard to pick just one.

Maggie Smith is marvelous as Cassidy's lost love: "I'm a small simple girl. I need a small simple life, not your terrible dreams and your anger." Smart girl, but two hearts are broken as Cassidy boards the boat for parts unknown.

Julie Christie's a revelation as Daisy, one of three stunningly good perfs she delivered in her Oscar winning golden year. Michael Redgrave is just right as Yeats; and Flora Robson gets a late career lift as Cassidy's Ma.

The entire production takes the viewer back in time to the turbulent setting of O'Casey's youth, in an exceptionally good yet unfairly overlooked film.

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.

Stage Door Theatre, San Francisco; May 19, 1965. An East Side arthouse in a West Coast town; the perfect venue for the pictorial beauty and distinctly Irish attitude of this largely forgotten film. Superb perf by Rod Taylor, an ideal choice for the title role, in an always interesting vision of the early life and career of Irish playwright Sean O'Casey, from his autobiography. Dublin in the 1920s, with all the period feel and detail John Ford can muster. He fell ill and was replaced by Jack Cardiff, who carried on seamlessly. Ted Scaife photographed it brilliantly, in gorgeous Color, on actual locations. A splendid cast brought the days of O'Casey and the Troubles to vibrant and bitter life. Rod Taylor's best perf in many ways, though he did so many good movies and gave so many fine perfs during his heyday, it's hard for me to choose just one. Maggie Smith is marvelous as O'Casey's lost love: "I'm a small simple girl. I need a small simple life, not your terrible dreams and your anger." Smart girl, but two hearts are broken as Sean boards the boat for parts unknown. Julie Christie's a revelation as Daisy, one of three stunningly good perfs she gave in her golden year. Michael Redgrave's perfect as Yeats; and Flora Robson gets a late career lift as O'Casey's ma. The entire production takes the viewer back in time, to the setting of this exceptionally good and unfairly overlooked film.

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" was to have been directed by John Ford, but he had to withdraw owing to illness about three weeks into filming, and was replaced by Jack Cardiff, who was credited as director. Had Ford completed it, it would have been his penultimate film; he was to complete one more film, "Seven Women", the following year. Ford was himself of Irish descent and occasionally made films on Irish subjects, such as "The Quiet Man".

The film is a biography based upon the life of the dramatist Sean O'Casey, here called John Cassidy. (O'Casey's original name was John Casey, although his family also used the name Cassidy. He Gaelicised his name to Seán Ó Cathasaigh and eventually settled on Sean O'Casey, a compromise between the English and Irish forms). The name may have been changed to allow the film-makers greater freedom to introduce fictional elements into O'Casey's life. For example, in 1926, the year the film ends, he would have been 46, no longer particularly "young" and more than a decade older than Rod Taylor was in 1965.

The film opens 1911 when Cassidy is working as a labourer in Dublin and chronicles the beginning of his literary career, ending with the performance of his play "The Plough and the Stars", which provokes a riot at the Abbey Theatre. The film also chronicles his relations with his family, his love life and his commitment to both socialism and Irish nationalism. Other historical figures are introduced, such as W.B. Yeats, Ireland's leading writer who hails Cassidy as an outstanding new talent, and the literary patron Lady Gregory.

The film's main weakness is perhaps summed by a critic's reaction to one of Cassidy's plays, namely that it is strong on character and weak on plot. The same could be said about the film itself. Although the various characters are well developed, there is no strongly developed plot line. There are occasional action sequences, in themselves well done, such as the scenes of the "Dublin Lock-Out" (a violent industrial dispute) of 1913, the Easter Rising of 1916 and the "Plough and the Stars" riot, in between these the film is rather static and dominated by conversation

Potentially interesting themes tend to be dealt with in a throwaway manner. Cassidy's girlfriend Nora rejects his proposal of marriage and leaves him, even though she is deeply in love with him, because she fears that marriage will have a deleterious effect on his artistic creativity. The idea of a woman sacrificing her happiness for her lover's art could have been an interesting one- could, indeed, have furnished the subject-matter for a whole film- but here it is dealt with very briefly.

Similarly the film touches on, but does not really deal with, the underlying tension between the two political causes to which Cassidy gives his allegiance- socialism, with its ideals of international brotherhood, and Irish nationalism, with its ethos of "ourselves alone" (the literal meaning of the Irish phrase Sinn Fein). It was in fact this tension which led to the "Plough and the Stars" riot, when conservative, middle-class nationalists in the audience took exception to O'Casey's more left-wing perspective and what they saw as his disrespectful attitude to the "heroes" of the Easter Rising. (They also objected to his treatment of religion and sex, especially his making one of his characters a prostitute; in the film one protesting woman exclaims that there is not a single prostitute in the whole of Ireland!)

The film does, however, also have its strong points, and its two greatest strengths are its sense of place- the Dublin of the 1910s and 1920s is brought vividly to life- and the acting. Strangely enough, few of the leading actors were actually Irish- Taylor was Australian and Maggie Smith, Julie Christie, Michael Redgrave, Edith Evans and Flora Robson were all English. (Christie received second billing even though for such a well-known actress she had a surprisingly small role, that of Cassidy's early mistress Daisy Battles). Nevertheless, the Irish accents are well done and never go over the top as sometimes happens with English actors called upon to play Irish roles. Taylor makes Cassidy a strong and rugged hero, and Robson is particularly good as Cassidy's stoical, long-suffering working-class mother.

"Young Cassidy" has its points of interest, but overall I felt that O'Casey was obviously a fascinating character, both as a man and as a writer, and that a stronger biography could have been made of him. 6/10

Sean O'Casey was born John Casey, so a film about his early life that calls him John Cassidy makes sense in a sort of way. The film is based on his autobiographies (there are 6 volumes I believe) which are apparently quite readable but not entirely trustworthy. As a committed socialist (even a communist) and protestant O'Casey was to find he had no place in the conservative, catholic Ireland of De Valera. This is the great central irony of the man's life (and of the history of Irish literature of the time), that one of the few great Irish writers to deal directly with the Troubles was eventually driven from the country - so much so that he spent the last 35 years of his life in England and never once went back home. The film "Young Cassidy" is a pretty decent attempt to capture the man and his oddities. Rod Taylor looks nothing like the man but gives an energetic, likable performance. Other performances are OK and it is always nice to see Michael Redgrave, here as Yeats (he looks as little like the real man as Taylor does). Started by John Ford this looks like one of his Irish pictures but thankfully never descends into the blarney that films such as "The Quiet Man" did (Jack Cardiff who directed most of the film deserves more credit than he is usually given for his role). Filmed in Dublin it has a very authentic look. The main problem is in toning down O'Casey and his politics, he was far more radical than he was portrayed here and also far more of an irritant (to whatever country he lived in). In summary a decent biopic, overlooked but worth watching by Ford fans or those interested in Ireland.

"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.

"Young Cassidy" is one of my all time favorite movies. I am a big fan of Sean O'Casey, and became a big fan of Rod Taylor's when I first saw this film over 35 years ago. It used to be shown every St. Patrick's day, like The Informer and The Quiet Man, I believe it was WOR, Channel 9 (now the UPN) here in NY, then it just disappeared, and I have been unable to find a VHS or DVD copy of it, a real shame. John Ford worked his usual magic and was well replaced by Jack Cardiff (after Ford fell ill), and a wonderful vision of Ireland in the early 20th Century took shape. It tells of Young Jack Cassidy (O'Casey) and his attempts to break out of the poverty cycle he has been trapped in, to get away and pursue a career as a writer. He is faced with the prejudice that all "common" Irish faced, and then has to survive the madness that overtakes Dublin during the "Easter Rebellion" of 1916, before he finally gets a chance and sails off to London. I have not seen this film in 20 years, and I wish I knew why it was so unavailable. It adheres quite well to O'Casey's Autobiographies, though it is more fun to read his words than see them portrayed.

I was most amused to see the credits start presenting a John Ford film and the credits ending with "directed by Jack Cardiff."

I believe John Ford was responsible for a few scenes in the film, including the scene where Rod Taylor (Sean O'Casey/Cassidy) enters the room where his mother (Dame Flora Robson) lies dead. This sequence is extraordinary--described and narrated by Taylor's monologue and actions. This does not stand up to the quality of the rest of the film, which is below average. Now Cardiff is a good cinematographer. He has to deal with a great cast assembled by Ford, who individually perform very well, and are captured well by Cardiff's visual eye but lack the vision of a great director to string the pearls together into a great necklace. The film's ending is amusing--a poor man turned rich man handing a crown to a vagrant who appreciates the worth of the money. What had the ending to do with what preceded it? If anything, the final scene is ambiguous and one begins to wonder whether the director was making a hero of Sean O'Casey or was he chastising him as are the film's oblique comments on Yeats living in sheltered house, policed by the British. The poor man turned into a rich and famous playwright is presented to us in fits and starts. The film did have a good intention but it lapses into mediocrity. Only two characters develop well--the mother (Robson) and Nora (Maggie Smith).

Julie Christie is mesmerising in any film but her character is never developed. Maggie Smith has charmed audiences over the years but this film is definitely one of her finest. Dames Robson and Evans are daunting thespians. Add to them Michael Redgrave. All great actors--including Aussie Rod Taylor. The film does not end with a bang but with a whimper.

If you can ignore Sean O'Casey commitments to labor unions, socialism, and his many years on a blacklist (subjects that are not favorites in Hollywood), this is a well-cast, workman-like biopic. It is especially pleasing, I'm sure, for anyone sentimental about the Old Sod, like John Ford, its original director, whose illness necessitated replacement by Jack Cardiff. It celebrates O'Casey's early struggles as a laborer, rebel, and innovative playwright subject to much vilification. His love of family and a couple of young women offers most of the entertainment. An 8 minute long behind-the-scenes documentary about this film was also made ("Sean O'Casey: The Spirit of Ireland" (1965)).

The life story of Dublin playwright Sean O'Casey (here called Johnny Cassidy!) has a sweeping, arty direction by Jack Cardiff, with assistance from John Ford, but it is full of characters who fail to come to life despite a sterling cast of players. Adapted from O'Casey's autobiography "Mirror in My House", film is saddled with too much melodrama and sideline romances. The location filming is excellent, and Maggie Smith gives a standout performance as a spinster bookseller, but there's not enough heart in the handling. In the lead, Rod Taylor brings his rugged handsomeness to the screen but little else. *1/2 from ****

"Young Cassidy" is based on Sean O'Casey's autobiography of his early years, "A Mirror in My House."

Set in the early 1920s in Dublin, Johnny Cassidy is from a large, working class family and, like most families, struggles to put food on the table. His sister gave him a love of reading and writing which belies his rough exterior. Johnny loves his family, and feels the loss of family members very deeply, particularly his sister and his mother (Flora Robson).

But Johnny is young and enthusiastic, and, as portrayed by Rod Taylor, very attractive. (I don't think the real O'Casey was quite as good- looking.)

Cassidy becomes involved with a prostitute, Daisy Battles (Julie Christie), and his good friend is Mick Mullen (Philip O'Flynn). Mick gets him involved in Irish nationalism, defending the working class, and ending the British rule over Ireland.

Much of that activism seeps into his writing and informs it. One day, walking into a bookstore, he mets Nora (Maggie Smith), the clerk, and ultimately they fall in love.

Little by little, Cassidy finds success as his work is published and the Abbey Theatre decides to put on his plays. This is a controversial and difficult decision, as there will be some who will find the plays unacceptable. But the founders, William Butler Yeats (Michael Redgrave) and Lady Gregory (Edith Evans) take that chance anyway.

A powerful story with good production values that was let down by the script. It's a shame with a cast like this to give them such weak writing. Frankly, it was difficult for me to keep my attention on the movie.

But the making of the film was not without problems. John Ford became ill and was replaced by Jack Cardiff and supposedly only 4 minutes of Ford's work remained in the finished film. Had Ford's hand been all the way through, the film might have come off better.

Ford wanted Peter O'Toole or Richard Harris in the lead, and the role was offered to Sean Connery. Any one of them would have been effective and had great gravitas, but there was nothing wrong with Rod Taylor's work. And I think casting him gave the other actors a chance to shine as well.

The big surprise for me was Flora Robson as Cassidy's mother. In Fire over England (1937) I would have told you she was in her fifties, so I assumed she would be doddering around in this. She was 35 in 1937 and 63 here. She's excellent as Cassidy's encouraging and loving mother.

All in all, interesting, but for me, not really great. Deserves to be seen for the acting and the production values.

The early days of Sean O'Casey, played respectably by the Australian actor Rod Taylor, though I can't imagine the real O'Casey being anything like this. John Ford started the picture, took ill and was replaced by Jack Cardiff. It's not a bad film though it's far from a great one but the cast more than redeems it. If Julie Christie and Maggie Smith make for unlikely Irish colleens they at least bring a certain charm to proceedings while Flora Robson makes an effective Irish mother. The literary establishment is represented by Michael Redgrave's W.B. Yeats and Edith Evans, stealing the picture, as Lady Gregory and it's left to a fine supporting cast of Irish actors to provide local color. As a biopic it comes across as something akin to a Reader's Digest view of Irish history and Ford was always too close to the blarney to look at things objectively. It could have been so much better but it remains a very interesting curio.

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.

It's 1911 Dublin in British ruled Ireland. Laborer John Cassidy (Rod Taylor) is struggling to make ends mean for his extended family. He gets involved with a strike where he meets Daisy Battles (Julie Christie). He tries to steal books from book seller Nora (Maggie Smith). The aspiring writer joins a militia. After a bloody battle, he starts using his pen rather than the sword.

It's a biopic based on playwright Seán O'Casey's autobiographical novel. I don't really like Cassidy. I do wonder if Connery had play the character. The movie is trying for some irreverent broad humor, but Rod Taylor is not pulling it off. That's not even considering whether the humor works side-by-side with the serious subject matter. There is one really bad broad joke in the middle of a battle which destroys the action. John Ford started directing but illness forced him to be replaced by Jack Cardiff. I do like the early strike riot scene, but the movie becomes uneven after that. After the peace treaty, the subject turns and there is a divide in the story.

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

A film full of great performances and harsh editing. Truly enjoyable with great chemistry between the two primary leads of Maggie Smith and Rod Taylor, but also many great supporting performances. Great cinematography and settings, this should have been 30 minutes longer for the material to breathe and give clearer exposition.

Still, I found this to be great cinema and an enlightening view into the art arising from the Irish rebellion.

Young Cassidy (1965) was directed by Jack Cardiff, who finished the film after John Ford became ill and couldn't continue. Cardiff was a good, solid director, but he didn't bring Ford's magic to the movie.

The film is a biography of the great Irish author Seán O'Casey, whose plays are still performed today. Why the studio decided to name Casey's character Cassidy is a mystery to me. There may be some justification to this because O'Casey had taken the Irish name Seán Ó Cathasaigh during the Irish revolution.

Rod Taylor, as Cassidy, does a good job. Julie Christie is listed as a co-star, but this just isn't true. She's not even a supporting actor--she has a cameo role.

The rest of the cast of this movie is loaded with famous, talented actors. Dame Maggie Smith as Nora, the woman who loves Cassidy, is outstanding. She was 31 years old when the film was made, and was attractive and talented. (We somehow think that Maggie Smith always looked they way she looked in Downton Abbey. Of course, that's not so.)

Dame Flora Robson Flora portrayed Cassidy's mother, Sir Michael Redgrave played the poet W.B. Yeats and Dame Edith Evans was Lady Gregory, a great figure in the Irish literary revival.

This film could have been great. O'Casey was an interesting person with a colorful life. If the producers had just let his life speak for itself, the movie would have worked.

One problem was marketing. Warner Brothers marketed the movie as "brawling, battling, earthy." The cover of the DVD shows Rod Taylor with his shirt off and his fist clenched. The cover has the quote, "That's Young Cassidy--taking on the world with two fists clenched and every male sense soaring." For the record, the film today would be rated PG-13. "Some violence, some implied sexuality."

The editing of the movie is terrible. We see the events of the Easter Uprising in 1916, and then we hear a newsboy shouting "Peace treaty signed." The treaty was signed in 1921. Five years of fighting blithely overlooked.

W.B Yeats and Lady Gregory did play a large part in O'Casey's career, but they appear out of nowhere. There wasn't any exposition about who they were and why they were important. If you study Irish cultural history in the 20th Century, Yeats and Gregory loom large. How many people actually know who they were? If you don't know, the movie won't clarify this for you.

On the other hand, there are some superb scenes of police attacking strikers in the Dublin dock strike and lockout. (No real exposition about that either.) My guess is that John Ford had directed that scene before he stepped away from the film.

There's also a powerful scene of British troops vs. revolutionaries in 1916. There was some street fighting in 1916, but most of the action took place in the Dublin General Post Office. The movie was filmed in England, and it probably was too much work to actually use the GPO as a setting.

Young Cassidy has a very weak IMDb rating of 6.6. I think it's better than that. My guess is that many people went to see it as an action movie, and were disappointed when it wasn't. We saw the film on DVD, and it worked well enough. It's not a must-see movie, but I enjoyed it well enough to recommend it.

I saw this movie many years ago shortly after reading all of Sean O'Casey's memoirs (Mirrors in my Hallway) and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie. Rod Taylor was perhaps too robust and handsome to play the part of the thin and bespectacled Irish writer but he did a capable job. My favorite part of the movie was when the three Cassidy brothers got into a pub brawl with a team of hurly players. I remember thinking that in the books Sean had no real liking for his brothers.

The depiction of the hard-pressed folks of Dublin is very realistic and grim. After years of English oppression the Irish nation was ready to boil over into one final uprising to free their land from John Bull's tyranny.

Oddly enough, Sean O'Casey spent much of his life as an exile in England. His writings like "Shadow of a Gunman" and "Juno and the Peacock" were produced in the Twenties and he never recaptured the magic once he left his native land.

I'd recommend the movie for St. Patrick's Day viewing because of its' Irish nationalistic theme.