Hirondelles et amazones

Although no one would accuse this film of being great art, it is a delightful, wholesome and reasonably accurate (albeit simplified) rendition of Arthur Ransome's wonderful book. It is nearly impossible these days to find any movies where the children are kind to one another, the parents are loving and the adventures are free of violence. If you love sailing, old boats, and a pleasant easygoing story, Swallows and Amazons isn't a bad choice. It is one of our family favorites.

Like many of the other reviewers of this film, I read all the Arthur Ransome books when I was young, and also saw the film when I was around 12 years old.

It's interesting to read some of the reviewers wondering if the film could appeal to today's children in the age of Shrek and the Incredibles. Well, my two daughters just watched it this afternoon (too young to have read the books) and they were both glued to it and the oldest enthusiastically grabbed the books when I pulled them down from the shelf.

Of course, the acting is awful. You ask yourself what on earth Virginia McKenna is doing in it, and Ronald Frazer (on paper) should be a good Captain Flint, but isn't. The children are almost universally awful. The Walker children's received RADA/Children's Film Foundation pronunciation is just about forgivable, but Kit Seymour as Nancy Blackett is so, so wrong, talking like some posh bird instead of the tomboy Northerner she should have been.

But, ah, Kit Seymour where are you now? I had such feelings for you when I was 12. Your posh accent didn't matter to me then, and I carried a flame for you for a long time...

When this arrived, I'd finished reading all the Swallows and Amazons novels just a few months before. I'd also just seen the TV productions of the two Coots books (click on my name for that review) and read Roger Wardale's "In Search of Swallows & Amazons" which interpolates a fair amount of biographical data into a photographic search for the real Lakeland sites in which the fictions take place.

Much about this 1974 theatrical film is right, and two things -- both casting issues -- grievously wrong. Judging from Wardale's photos and Ransome's descriptions, the lake lands, Wildcat and Comorant Islands, and especially the two landing sites on Wildcat look perfect or nearly. Also right: the two boats of the title swishing across the lake with the camera set low so that the distances and land masses appear as they might in a child's eye. I like that tacking, so important throughout the series, happens clearly and instructively without anyone ever stopping to explain it, whether Roger running otherwise bizarre switchbacks up a lazily sloping lawn, or John doing a hundred-count to tack in the dark. (Believe me it's clear when you see, especially if you know any of the books.) John and Susan, the one groping toward becoming a natural leader, the other painstakingly matronly yet able to break in an instant into a child's sprint, seem well cast and anchor the group. Able seaman Titty's the best cast. She has the most active imagination in the group, always seems more actively and willingly to believe, while the two older children have to work just a little at pretending. Roger, to me, looks a little two Alfred E. Newman, but does no real harm to the film.

The most horribly miscast is Nancy, the older Amazon. Though a bare year older in the books, here she towers over the others. I think she's at least as tall as the other miscast character, her uncle "Captain Flint," and even has a figure with which she could pass for eighteen or twenty. But worse than that, she's not wild enough. Not until the very end does she utter a single grudgingly weak "Shiver me timbers," or if she did before they were too limp to notice. She seems nearly as "native" as the Swallow's mother, while she should have been a driving force, the most vivid pretender, or equal at least to Titty. I'm not sure how to describe to who haven't read. Maybe the closest I can come is Charles Shultz's Peppermint Patty but with a lot more confidence. Reading, I always heard Nancy's "Shiver me timbers" as raucous as a parrot's cry.

Bird-faced actor Ronald Fraser's Uncle Jim, or "Captain Flint," looks like a fifty-year-old petty magistrate. He could never sincerely belong with these kids against the Natives. He IS a native, irredeemably. (Natives are adults, shore people, or in general anyone not in on the frame of mind out of which the term Native comes.) Ransome's Captain Flint is fat and knowledgeable, playful but seldom or never silly. Ronald Fraser condescends in a way that's anathema not just to the real fictional Flint but to Ransome.

But please take the good of all I've said, and do see this film.

Swallows and Amazons is a very pleasant film, it is nowhere near perfect, but it is very enjoyable. The film does look absolutely beautiful, with lovely views of the Lake District. What the film does lack is a narrative, it is a lovely story, based on Arthur Ransome's superior book, but personally I would have liked more narrative entwined into the story. Consequently, because the film wasn't to be that, despite some undeniably charming scenes, the film is a little shallow. What also let the film down was some of the casting. I had no problem with Virginia McKenna as the mother, she was lovely, and most of the children were very well done, especially Titty and Susan(a very young Susanna Hamilton). The two exceptions to this rule is Roger and Nancy, Roger being too gormless for my liking, and Nancy perhaps too old. Ronald Fraser as Uncle Jim was another problem. I liked his scene at the end with the children, when he plays the accordion, but on the whole he did overact, so I found it difficult to relate to his character. On a positive note, there are some really charming scenes with the children, like any scene on the water. Also the music score was lovely, and was careful not to overshadow the action. I had no problem with the script either, and on the whole the story made the film as charming as it actually is, despite its flaws, but there could have been more narrative. Overall, I really liked it, certainly not the best family film, but one worth looking out for. 7/10 Bethany Cox.

I read all the Arthur Ransome books as a child, and re-read them recently as an adult, but until today had not seen this film.

It's well filmed, with only minor plot adaptations (although large chunks are missed out), and the scenery and period details are especially well done. The boats look good!

The chunks missed out from the original story do give the film a slightly "chopped" feeling - it's difficult sometimes to work out how the characters got where they are.

The acting lets the film down a bit, I think. The best of the Swallows is Titty by quite a long way - Susan is OK, but nothing special, and the boys are both awful - the worst kind of declamatory child acting. The Amazons are pretty good, but as they feature less in the book the bad acting of John and Roger really does spoil the film a bit. Odd that of these actors, John seems to have gone on to have the best career!

The thing which the film lacks most, perhaps inevitably, is the narrative. Watching the film made me realize just how the skillful prose of the books draws you into another world - something the film doesn't quite manage.