Révolte à Dublin

The harnessing of crudely stereotypical Irish characters to the tale of the Easter uprising of 1916 makes for forgettable viewing. It departed so drastically from director John Ford's vision that he stormed off the set, leaving his assistant directors to finish the film. Barbara Stanwyck tries her best, but her task is hopeless as she's given nothing to do other than beg rebel husband Preston Foster to lay down his arms.

Sean O'Casey's drama of the Easter Rising doesn't survive its transformation to the screen. Director John Ford was reputed to be so angry over front office interference on his passion project that he walked off and never returned.

While Joe August's lighting and the serio-comic performance of Barry Fitgerald are wonders to behold - he edged basically the same character a little more to the clown for The Quiet Man - something has gone desperately wrong with the movement between the interior scenes, where the play takes place and the exterior, where it's opened up. Given that Ford was working with his pet screenwriter Dudley Nichols, and a couple of titles explain what is going on, it looks like butchery to me. I'd guess the studio heads were concerned about losing the British market. As if they had ever expected this to play big in Blighty.

Barbara Stanwyck is also a problem here. While visually she is perfect, she can't sling the lingo, and her occasional attempts to do an Irish accent are pathetic. It's particularly awkward when the scene shifts from her to the Abbey Players.

Set in Ireland during the 1916 Easter Rebellion, Barbara Stanwyck stars as Nora Clitheroe, the wife of Jack (Preston Foster), a former ranking member in the Irish underground. He's itching to get back into the fight, but he's promised his wife that his fighting days are behind him. Naturally, the call to arms becomes too strong, and as Jack heads back into the fray, Nora rages at his decision and the heartbreak of war.

Director John Ford basically disowned the finished film, claiming RKO had edited it into garbage. I don't think it's quite that bad, but it really isn't very good, either. Stanwyck is fairly awful, strident and struggling with her accent. Foster, who can be a compelling presence, is dull here. Brothers Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields, both making their first substantial appearances in an American movie, are what you'd expect. Fitzgerald's goofball character is meant to be the comic relief, but he's just irritating. The only performance that moved me at all was from Bonita Granville, as a young girl dreaming of a better life.

Made as a follow up to the hugely successful THE INFORMER, John Ford's much maligned screen version of THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS has long been regarded as one of his worst films.

I finally saw this film tonight, thanks to the wonderful Talking Pictures TV Channnel here in England.

My Iriish-born father loathed this film because he said it was a travesty of O'Casey's play and just a Hollywood fiction of the Easter uprising.

Well I read all the reviews here expecting the worst.

But, I was amazed to watch a print of this film that bore NO relation to that described in the reviews posted here! There was no newsreel footage interpolated, no unfortunate added narration whatsoever and no extra footage by other directors to explain the marriage of Stanwyck & Foster's marriage! What gives? What I saw was obviously a genuine John Ford film, beautifully directed and photographed, with many of his trademark camera set ups, close ups and scene compositions. His usual flair for narrative and the many subtle visual trademarks did not indicate a hatchet job by RKO.

The whole thing had an understated poetic quality and the pace and fluidity were striking.

So what was I looking at? A pre-release print that had somehow survived in the UK but not in the RKO archives in LA? It was certainly no turkey and even Stanwyck impressed me - her lack of accent did not matter, because Ford (in this print at least) let her face do all the acting for her. And she was great! Barry Fitzgerald was clearly doing a warm up for his role in THE QUIET MAN, but the remaining Abbey Players were all fine and I believe acted large portions of O'Casey's dialogue intact. I do not have a copy of the play to make a comparison but will seek it out.

Una O'Connor showed what a fine dramatic actress she was in Ireland before she found fame in Hollywood. Even Preston Foster demonstrated an impressive restraint and was highly impressive.

Ford did not have Max Steiner for this film (as he had on THE INFORMER and THE LOST PATROL) but Roy Webb did a fine job with a highly dramatic and vivid music score throughout.

But what of the source print? Are there really two extant versions of this film? If so, I think I watched the long lost "Director's Cut" tonight! How exciting!

If you like Ireland, Irish history & literature, the traditions of the Irish people & the ambiguous creation of the Irish nation -- what's not to like about this movie? Sure, now, it's more John Ford than Sean O'Casey. But what would you be expectin from John Ford at the height of his creative spirit -- four years before he filmed "Grapes of Wrath"? Almost everyone in this movie plays their part with pungent efficiency. It's old-fashioned acting of the best sort. As movie, this is much more cinema of ideas, of belief & revolution, of theater, of language & gesture & non-verbal communication -- than our contemporary cinema of special effects and technicolor sensations. This movie is political entertainment of a very fine order; with as much said by the words as by what is shown. But how many people alive now can relate to it with the potency it must of had back in the 1930s?