Ao Cair da Noite

A trio of short films about Ireland, introduced by Irish-American actor Tyrone Power, The Rising of the Moon can best be described as nice. Based on three works of Irish fiction and theater written by Frank O'Connor, Martin McHugh, and Lady Gregory, while taking its title from the original title of the third work, it's a trilogy of pastiches that try to paint the Irish character that John Ford loved. It doesn't never gets the depth of feeling or sheer entertainment value as Ford's The Quiet Man, but it's never really boring. It's just, well, it's nice.

The first is titled "The Majesty of the Law" based on the short story by O'Connor. It's about a police inspector, Dillon (Cyril Cusack), who decides to walk home from the constabulary in order to make a stop over at the house of Dan O'Flaherty (Noel Purcell) for what seems like a visit. Along the way, he meets the local moonshiner Mickey (Jack MacGowran), chastises him for what he's obviously doing, and goes into the hut where Dan lives. Dan had assaulted a fellow villager, and Dillon is there to arrest him. It's a small town environment where a local policeman knows everyone involved in a crime, and there's a deep personal history between everyone. A conversation strikes up between the three that seems to be about the nature of the Irish character, the underlying niceness and fraternity across the small town communities along with the amusing contrast of antagonism that's never all that dangerous. There's the ironic ending where the man Dan had attacked tries to pay his fine for him, but Dan will not accept it from the likes of such a man and proudly delivers himself to the jail for his sentence, since he refuses to pay the fine himself.

The second story is the most amusing of the three, and the best of them. Titled "A Minute's Wait" based on the one-act comedy by McHugh, it's the story of a train stopped at a sleepy little station that keeps getting delayed from its one minute stop by different, very Irish, things while very Irish goings on happen at the same time. There are the older acquaintances who play matchmakers for the son and niece they represent. There's the engineer who has a story about a ghost in a castle that the mousy woman who works behind the counter gets caught up in. There's an older English couple on their way to a wedding who watch it all, flabbergasted, and end up getting left behind on accident. There's the local cricket team that comes marching down the tracks and the train picks up. It's really just a collection of moments, but they're fun moments, building off of a little event portrayed in The Quiet Man of trains running late because train personnel have to hash out centuries' old arguments during stops.

The final story is titled "1921" and based on the play "The Rising of the Moon" by Lady Gregory. It tells the story of an IRA member, Sean Curran (Donal Donnelly) who is about to be hung by the English military. His fate has become a cause celebre for the Irish people as a large mass of them parade in front of the jail. A pair of nuns arrive at the jail, one of them, Sister Mary Grace (Maureen Cusack), who is Curran's sister. It's a ruse, though, and the girl, an American with an American passport, trades places with Curran and allows him to escape. He still has to get out of militarized Dublin, though, and he takes on the disguise of a ballad singer. Whenever an Irishman recognizes him for who he is, the other immediately takes up Curran's cover story and helps him along, eventually escaping after nearly coming to trouble under the watch of Sergeant O'Hara (Denis O'Dea) who only realizes who Curran is when he's gotten away.

The first and third are nice little stories, but it's the second that just goes for straight up entertaining and succeeds the most fully. The second isn't a great piece of short film, though. It's good.

The actors seem to be, except for Tyrone Power who only introduces the segments, Irish stage and screen actors living in Ireland, providing a very nice level of authenticity to the action.

Ford manages the interesting production well, but the depth is never there and the entertainment value somewhat limited. It's nice.

Rising of the Moon, The (1957)

** (out of 4)

Anthology film has director Ford returning to Ireland but the end results are far from those of THE QUIET MAN. In the first story, "The Majesty of the Law" has a policeman going to visit an old friend, now living desperately poor due to something in his past but it turns out he does have the money to correct his wrongdoings but refuses. The second story "One Minute's Wait" is about a train that stops off in a small station but every time it tries to leave something else comes up preventing it from doing so. The final film, "1921", is about an American nun who helps a British man escape from be hung but this just leads to more problems. This here is one of the least known works by Ford and it's easy to see why as we really don't have any well-known actors in the three stories. We do have Tyrone Power showing up for brief intros to each story but this here certainly wasn't enough to bring people to the film. This is one of those movies that I just watched without ever getting fully entertained but at the same time I was never really bored. The film, on a technical level, is quite good as you can tell in each scene that Ford has a love for the subject matter. Each scene is beautifully filmed and the cinematography certainly picks up the beauty of the land. The film also works in terms of the performances. The cast are mainly unknown actors but they do very good work and they come across as real characters. Anytime you tell "short stories" within one film then you're already fighting an uphill battle as it's hard to create one equally flowing film. It seems reviews are really mixed on which is the best story but my vote would go to the final one. In his introduction Power says it comes from a story that "all Americans would know" but I doubt that's the case. The story is a mild crime drama but it contains some interesting set-ups even if it does end out of no where. In the end, this isn't a disaster or a good film but it's a minor work that will probably appeal to those with a major love of Irish stories.

The Rising of the Moon (1957), directed by John Ford, is actually three short films about Ireland.

The first is "The Majesty of the Law," from a story by Frank O'Connor. O'Connor was an outstanding author, and the story itslef is worth reading. Ford keeps O'Connor's concept, but adds many embellishments. I wasn't impressed by these additions, but I was impressed by Ford's direction, which was outstanding in all three segments.

The second story, "A Minute's Wait," is by a less-known Irish writer, Michael J. McHugh. It's a fairly repetitious piece about a train that, for many reasons, never quite leaves the small station where it has stopped. It's the comic relief film. An English colonel and his wife are on the train, and they are presented as perfect stereotypes. At one point a sports team arrives, with great fanfare. The colonel tells his wife that it's probably the local cricket team. Of course, it's actually a victorious team that competes in the Irish sport of hurling. One reason not to fast-forward is to listen to the most bizarrely worded marriage proposal that you'll ever hear.

The third segment is adapted from Lady Augusta Gregory's play, "The Rising of the Moon." Lady Gregory was an English aristocrat who lived in Ireland, and adopted the Irish revolutionary cause as her own. She was the founder of he famous Abbey Theatre, which still exists today.

This segment has two serious plots. One is obvious--an Irish revolutionary is about to be executed. The other is less obvious but, in my opinion, it's the more important plot. It involves an Irish Constabulary sergeant and his wife. We see them first at the very beginning of the story, and again at the very end.

We saw this movie on the small screen, where it worked well. It's uneven, and not a masterpiece, but it's worth seeing. It has an anemic IMDb rating of 6.8. I think it's much better than that.

THE RISING OF THE MOON.

Utterly charming film. Even better than the Brit's, QUARTET.

No 'name' stars, but they could never have given the characters the same authenticity and humanness that we enjoy from all the interpretive acting projected in each of the three episodes.

For sure, we get the best of the Irish character actors, either from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, or even from the Outer Hebrides Playhouse ( just kidding), with all giving awesomely enjoyable performances.

Of course with John Ford at the helm, how could THE RISING OF THE MOON miss its place in the film firmament.

PS Correction from a previous review. The bobby/cop in the third episode was Dennis O'Day, not Ward Bond, whom you can catch as a cop in GWTW.

.A movie made of sketches.which is pretty rare in the English/Irish films,except for the horror flicks ,and in Ford's filmography;French (Duvivier) and Italians (Risi) are more familiar to that kind of stuff.

Ford's film has one great quality:his shorts become better and better.

I must confess I found the first segment pretty boring:unlike the two others ,it does not have an "universal" appeal .It is very talky and only the splendid Irish landscapes (it was filmed on location,Tyrone Power told us so in his presentation of the film)redeem it a little.

Things go much better with the second segment:one minute's wait in a tiny railway station which actually will last a very looong time.Several miniplots intermix (a mature couple going to a wedding ,a ghost story ,marriageable son and daughter ,a hockey team whose bus has broken down,a she-goat,lobsters ,and more ) and the very last picture is worthy of a Tex Avery cartoon. "The quiet man" in miniature.

Ford saved the best for the last:mainly during the first half ,he has a very fine way to blend tragedy (an Irish rebel will be hanged by the English ) and comedy (those nuns are wearing high heels!).A positive "remake" of "the informer" this segment is witty,sometimes hilarious,and even suspenseful.It ends of course with the traditional song "rising of the moon" a policeman used to sing although he found it a bit subversive.

This movie is to Ford what the album "Irish Heartbeat " is to singer Van Morrison :a work of love for his homeland.