Young Cassidy (1965) was directed by Jack Cardiff, who finished the film after John Ford became ill and couldn't continue. Cardiff was a good, solid director, but he didn't bring Ford's magic to the movie.
The film is a biography of the great Irish author Seán O'Casey, whose plays are still performed today. Why the studio decided to name Casey's character Cassidy is a mystery to me. There may be some justification to this because O'Casey had taken the Irish name Seán Ó Cathasaigh during the Irish revolution.
Rod Taylor, as Cassidy, does a good job. Julie Christie is listed as a co-star, but this just isn't true. She's not even a supporting actor--she has a cameo role.
The rest of the cast of this movie is loaded with famous, talented actors. Dame Maggie Smith as Nora, the woman who loves Cassidy, is outstanding. She was 31 years old when the film was made, and was attractive and talented. (We somehow think that Maggie Smith always looked they way she looked in Downton Abbey. Of course, that's not so.)
Dame Flora Robson Flora portrayed Cassidy's mother, Sir Michael Redgrave played the poet W.B. Yeats and Dame Edith Evans was Lady Gregory, a great figure in the Irish literary revival.
This film could have been great. O'Casey was an interesting person with a colorful life. If the producers had just let his life speak for itself, the movie would have worked.
One problem was marketing. Warner Brothers marketed the movie as "brawling, battling, earthy." The cover of the DVD shows Rod Taylor with his shirt off and his fist clenched. The cover has the quote, "That's Young Cassidy--taking on the world with two fists clenched and every male sense soaring." For the record, the film today would be rated PG-13. "Some violence, some implied sexuality."
The editing of the movie is terrible. We see the events of the Easter Uprising in 1916, and then we hear a newsboy shouting "Peace treaty signed." The treaty was signed in 1921. Five years of fighting blithely overlooked.
W.B Yeats and Lady Gregory did play a large part in O'Casey's career, but they appear out of nowhere. There wasn't any exposition about who they were and why they were important. If you study Irish cultural history in the 20th Century, Yeats and Gregory loom large. How many people actually know who they were? If you don't know, the movie won't clarify this for you.
On the other hand, there are some superb scenes of police attacking strikers in the Dublin dock strike and lockout. (No real exposition about that either.) My guess is that John Ford had directed that scene before he stepped away from the film.
There's also a powerful scene of British troops vs. revolutionaries in 1916. There was some street fighting in 1916, but most of the action took place in the Dublin General Post Office. The movie was filmed in England, and it probably was too much work to actually use the GPO as a setting.
Young Cassidy has a very weak IMDb rating of 6.6. I think it's better than that. My guess is that many people went to see it as an action movie, and were disappointed when it wasn't. We saw the film on DVD, and it worked well enough. It's not a must-see movie, but I enjoyed it well enough to recommend it.
The film is a biography of the great Irish author Seán O'Casey, whose plays are still performed today. Why the studio decided to name Casey's character Cassidy is a mystery to me. There may be some justification to this because O'Casey had taken the Irish name Seán Ó Cathasaigh during the Irish revolution.
Rod Taylor, as Cassidy, does a good job. Julie Christie is listed as a co-star, but this just isn't true. She's not even a supporting actor--she has a cameo role.
The rest of the cast of this movie is loaded with famous, talented actors. Dame Maggie Smith as Nora, the woman who loves Cassidy, is outstanding. She was 31 years old when the film was made, and was attractive and talented. (We somehow think that Maggie Smith always looked they way she looked in Downton Abbey. Of course, that's not so.)
Dame Flora Robson Flora portrayed Cassidy's mother, Sir Michael Redgrave played the poet W.B. Yeats and Dame Edith Evans was Lady Gregory, a great figure in the Irish literary revival.
This film could have been great. O'Casey was an interesting person with a colorful life. If the producers had just let his life speak for itself, the movie would have worked.
One problem was marketing. Warner Brothers marketed the movie as "brawling, battling, earthy." The cover of the DVD shows Rod Taylor with his shirt off and his fist clenched. The cover has the quote, "That's Young Cassidy--taking on the world with two fists clenched and every male sense soaring." For the record, the film today would be rated PG-13. "Some violence, some implied sexuality."
The editing of the movie is terrible. We see the events of the Easter Uprising in 1916, and then we hear a newsboy shouting "Peace treaty signed." The treaty was signed in 1921. Five years of fighting blithely overlooked.
W.B Yeats and Lady Gregory did play a large part in O'Casey's career, but they appear out of nowhere. There wasn't any exposition about who they were and why they were important. If you study Irish cultural history in the 20th Century, Yeats and Gregory loom large. How many people actually know who they were? If you don't know, the movie won't clarify this for you.
On the other hand, there are some superb scenes of police attacking strikers in the Dublin dock strike and lockout. (No real exposition about that either.) My guess is that John Ford had directed that scene before he stepped away from the film.
There's also a powerful scene of British troops vs. revolutionaries in 1916. There was some street fighting in 1916, but most of the action took place in the Dublin General Post Office. The movie was filmed in England, and it probably was too much work to actually use the GPO as a setting.
Young Cassidy has a very weak IMDb rating of 6.6. I think it's better than that. My guess is that many people went to see it as an action movie, and were disappointed when it wasn't. We saw the film on DVD, and it worked well enough. It's not a must-see movie, but I enjoyed it well enough to recommend it.