Black Donnellys

I attended the screening of the Black Donnelly's (2017) movie last evening in Lucan, the small village in Biddulph Township, where some of the story of The Donnelly's takes place.

The costumes, scenery and the believable cast took me back, to what I have always pictured when reading the many books about The Donnelly Family.

I felt the movie didn't take sides, standing with the Donnelly Family or the Vigilantes, but tried to portray the history ... legend ... tale ... story fairly.

A lot of information and many years were condensed into this 45 minute production and I would love to see a longer version of the movie or perhaps a mini-series.

For anyone interested in the tale of the Donnelly Family I would highly recommend the movie.

The film was a huge project to undertake. The story is well worth telling, to keep an interesting and important event in Canada's history alive. It was well done, even with the timing constraints. It is, however, a story that could easily be expanded to provide a much deeper character study of the members of the Donnelly family and of other residents in the Lucan area. The only suggestion is to decrease the volume of the background music in order to hear the dialogue taking place, as it was at times, difficult to hear. Loved it!

This film was extremely well done, especially since it was on a very small budget. The writer and producer of this film should be very proud to offer such an important slice of Ontario history. The story of the Black Donnelly's is well known to us, having read the book in high school, and yet this film offered insight into the family that I have never been aware of previously. It seemed like a "fair" telling of the story. During the discussion after, the writer said that they were offering this as a pilot for a show on the History Channel. As someone who loves history, I would definitely watch a series that showcased Ontario's history. The history channel shows so many programs that have nothing to do with history; I used to watch it so much but lately find that it does not hold my attention at all.

Excellent!! Two thumbs up! Can't wait to see what comes next from Electric Motion Pictures. Watching this movie is like stepping back in time to the 1800's. Hats off to the cast and crew of this movie for doing such a great job. Do yourself a favour and go see this movie. If you can. It's been sold out in every city that it has screened in.

This movie is too ambitious, it tries to tell the story in 45 minutes and fails; the result is a choppy rather confusing series of disconnected short scenes. It presented the Donnellys in a favourable light, as victims of prejudice rather than as the violent instigators of trouble that I had understood from my (rather poor) prior knowledge; this view has been born out by my research on line this evening. I am therefore glad I went to see it and am inspired to read further.

I was very surprised at the great turn out at the Port Elgin cinema; two full houses on a Saturday afternoon is very unusual and highlights the grip this Ontario story has on us, seeming more like a story from the Wild West of America than nice gentle Canada!!! If you are intrigued by the Donnelly story go and see it, the scenery, costumes, and settings struck me as authentic, and the sympathetic view of the family was a revelation for me.