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A friendly, poetry quoting bus conductor in 1963 Dublin wants to stage Oscar Wilde's play, Salome, with passengers on his bus.A friendly, poetry quoting bus conductor in 1963 Dublin wants to stage Oscar Wilde's play, Salome, with passengers on his bus.A friendly, poetry quoting bus conductor in 1963 Dublin wants to stage Oscar Wilde's play, Salome, with passengers on his bus.
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Did you know
- TriviaThe bus depot filming location was the Broadstone Dublin Bus Depot, in Dublin 7, Ireland. Formerly, the Broadstone Railway Terminus, prior to the de-commissioning of the Great Western Railway line, and it being used as a bus depot, in the mid 2010s, the forecourt was completely demolished to accommodate the Luas Cross City tram stop and route passing what later became the new consolidated DIT Grangegorman University campus. By coincidence, the former "mental hospital" land adjacent to Broadstone Depot, that later became the DIT Student Accommodation site, was used as a backlot to build the (geographically inaccurate) O'Connell Street/GPO exterior set for Neil Jordan's Michael Collins (1996).
- GoofsIn reality the no smoking rule on lower deck of CIE buses was observed religiously. The casual breaking of this rule would never be tolerated.
- Quotes
Alfie Byrne: Dancing is neither modest or immodest. It's either well-done, or badly done.
Christy Ward: Is that a quote?
Alfie Byrne: Almost.
- ConnectionsEdited into Screen Two: A Man of No Importance (1996)
- SoundtracksLet's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)
Written by Cole Porter
Published by Warner Bros. Inc.
Performed by Eartha Kitt
Featured review
Surprisingly dull stuff
In 1963's Dublin Alfred Byrne is a bus conductor who pleasures his working class passengers with poetry recitals as he punches their tickets. Head of a local theatre group, Byrne is inspired by meeting new passenger Adele Rice to drop his plans to do Importance of Being Earnest and instead go up with Salome. With the challenges to the material from those who would usually support him, Byrne also faces much more negative attention than he would usually like as various truths and secrets come out.
Although the plot does have some interesting aspects to it, it is hard to ignore how average a fist it makes of this story. The threads are there to be delivered and at its heart is Byrne, who is a complex character and one that could have been more interesting. Sadly Krishnamma cannot seem to bring this out of the script with any degree of sharpness. Although I get the idea of the mood and tone that the director was going for, the effect it has is to slow the film right down to the point where it crawls and is surprisingly unengaging. Visually the film has a nice feel of the period but the drab looks again tend to drag the film down a bit.
On paper the cast suggests that they can lift the material themselves but surprisingly nobody does and many of them deserved better. Finney's accent is pretty awful (which didn't help anything) and although he has a certain dignity befitting the character, and brings out some pain, he is never as convincing as he should have been. Fricker, Gambon, Sewell and Fitzgerald are mostly OK but they are given little to do in this film.
A fairly uninspiring affair then. There are things of interest in here but they aren't delivered that well and the film is surprisingly dull.
Although the plot does have some interesting aspects to it, it is hard to ignore how average a fist it makes of this story. The threads are there to be delivered and at its heart is Byrne, who is a complex character and one that could have been more interesting. Sadly Krishnamma cannot seem to bring this out of the script with any degree of sharpness. Although I get the idea of the mood and tone that the director was going for, the effect it has is to slow the film right down to the point where it crawls and is surprisingly unengaging. Visually the film has a nice feel of the period but the drab looks again tend to drag the film down a bit.
On paper the cast suggests that they can lift the material themselves but surprisingly nobody does and many of them deserved better. Finney's accent is pretty awful (which didn't help anything) and although he has a certain dignity befitting the character, and brings out some pain, he is never as convincing as he should have been. Fricker, Gambon, Sewell and Fitzgerald are mostly OK but they are given little to do in this film.
A fairly uninspiring affair then. There are things of interest in here but they aren't delivered that well and the film is surprisingly dull.
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- bob the moo
- Sep 1, 2006
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Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $920,916
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $36,606
- Dec 26, 1994
- Gross worldwide
- $920,916
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Sound mix
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Top Gap
By what name was A Man of No Importance (1994) officially released in Canada in English?
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