The Quare Fellow

The title 'translates' to "The Condemned Man," by the way. As a kid, I saw this movie soon after its U.S. release; so after almost 40 years, I remember little except that (1)it was visually unlike any movie I'd seen; (2)I enjoyed it very much, especially (3)Patrick MacGoohan's performance. I hope to hunt this one down, see it again, and return here to relate more specifics.

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.

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.

This is certainly a compelling movie. The acting is fine to very good. Sylvia Syms is especially good. I think she may be a little miscast: Her elegant manner comes through even in a cat fight.

I guess it was an admirable undertaking. And the basic theme is still there: Hanging is a pretty brutal thing for civilized men to do, even in the name of justice.

But the wit of the original play is mostly lost. The story is opened up for the movie. That happened a lot, especially in those times. But in making it more cinematic, its original punch was lost.

A major character is either left out or greatly toned-down. What's left is a 1930s Warner Brother prison movie transposed to the UK. Those movies were almost always at least entertaining and were often powerful. This is entertaining and a little powerful. But I'm not sure it's Brendan Behan.

"The quare fellow " is not only a depiction of an Irish prison before death penalty was abolished :it's a initiation of a young warden who does think that he is here to protect the society ; little by little, he discovers the other side of the picture: the doctor has to make sure that the future condemned man is healthy ,that he won't do away with himself before he mounts the scaffold ; the "undertakers" being given two stouts apiece if they finish their dirty work quickly .

It's ,like "yield to the night" ,which concerned a condemned woman (Diana Dors) ,an indictment against death penalty ; when the warden (McGoohan ) meets the sentenced to death man's wife (Syms), he learns it was actually a crime of passion ,not punishable by death ; the main setback of the screenplay is that this man ,who did not want his wife to be considered a w......, is not given a single scene in the screenplay (unless the gallows count).Well acted.