The Gentle Gunman (Vintage Classics) [Blu-ray] [2022]

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John Mills won an Oscar for Ryan's Daughter. Playing an Irishman. Who was mute. This last point is most relevant since, on the basis of this film, dear Johnny - of whom I am very fond - couldn't do an Irish accent for toffee. Here, he and Dirk Bogarde play Republican brothers - suspend that disbelief! - at odds over how to fight the English during the Second World War. Otherwise, working-class heroes and villains prevailed, enabling Ealing to hold a more accurate mirror to society than before: a shift that coincided with the decline of deference during the war, and culminated in the election in 1945 of a Labour government whose values, and then failures, Ealing also depicted. Although censorship (and good taste) limited the villainy that could be shown and saw Ealing release two films that insisted on the profound distinction between right and wrong – It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) and The Blue Lamp (1950) – a third, more ambiguous film took the studio closer to those boundaries of taste than usual under Balcon’s cautious eye. It is easy to see why Dirk Bogarde went on to such a well-respected career, when he was turning in performances like Matt in The Gentle Gunman. His youthful passion and the burn of injustice bring an intensity to scenes. But none more so than the penultimate sequence. Terry is trying to keep their comrades from completing a violent demonstration that would injure many innocent women and children in a residential street. Matt is almost helplessly watching events unfold. There is a group of children nearby, and when violence breaks out, he finally makes his choice. An Overview Ealing Studios produced this interesting take on the Troubles with a handful of its most famous stars in front and behind the camera. One of the studio’s most respected directors Basil Dearden (Dead of Night, The Blue Lamp) depicts Dirk Bogarde and John Mills as brothers waging an IRA bombing campaign during WWII. Yet even with its handful of nicely staged action scenes, its focus is much more on the ideological clash between family and national identity as loyalties and beliefs ebb, flow and begin to shift as the bodies begin to pile up. Although its boss, Michael Balcon, could be a mild autocrat, Ealing Studios took a democratic approach to the content of its films. When most higher-budget British films were about royalty, the nobility, toffs or (at worst) the middle classes, Balcon’s arrival at Ealing in 1938, and the war in 1939, saw the “ordinary” man become central to the studio’s output. Toffs became confined to romantic costume dramas, such as 1948’s Saraband for Dead Lovers (about George I’s wife, and one of the studio’s least successful films), or, the following year, the magnificent Kind Hearts and Coronets, an extravaganza of such decadence and depravity that Balcon, and indeed many viewers, did not understand quite how decadent and depraved it was.

In-between these grander moments, Dearden and MacDougall ensure that the film never stagnates during its quieter, more character focused interludes, with Dearden continuously helped by Gordon Dines’ bold cinematography. The fact that the film utilises so many real locations, from urban streets to countryside roads, only adds to the visceral thrill. John Mills, Dirk Bogarde and Robert Beatty are near perfection together in this Basil Dearden film about two Irish brothers working for the I.R.A. in Britain during WWII. Mills is the older brother with a conscience, having been around long enough to become aware of the real costs of the conflict. Bogarde is younger, more idealistic and pragmatic, determined to support the cause while suppressing occasional misgivings. Beatty carries the weight of leadership, often coming across as ruthless in his determination. Also noteworthy is Barbara Mullen's performance as the mother who has had to endure the loss of her husband and eldest son. While not an example of any of the participants’ finest works, The Gentle Gunman is still a compelling film. The acting performances bring a passion and warmth which makes us care about the sympathetic characters, and somewhat pity and despise their rivals. Basil Dearden brings us the intensity that the subject demands. And while this film may not accurately represent the Irish conflict, nor add any context that we couldn’t find elsewhere, it is somewhat sympathetic to both sides. It allows points of view to breathe, and also to overlap, as in life. The Gentle Gunman should also be commended for its balanced and fairly realistic characterisations. For what still remains an incredibly divisive topic, the film remains remarkably sympathetic to its characters (and their arguments) on both sides of the political discourse. Interestingly, it is the most obviously English character who comes off the worst, portrayed as both pompous and narrow minded (this is perhaps explained by the fact that this character is played by Gilbert Harding, a man who had no love for the British Empire). Basil Dearden’s Ealing drama. John Mills and Dirk Bogarde play brothers and IRA members with diametrically opposed views of mounting an IRA campaign of violence in London during World War II.It premiered at the Cambridge Arts Theatre before transferring to the Arts Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 31 performances between 2 and 27 August 1950. The original London cast included Henry Hewitt, Robin Bailey, Victor Maddern, Larry Burns, Michael Golden, Harry Towb, Eddie Byrne, Kevin Stoney, Louise Hampton and Maureen Pryor. [1] The production was televised by the BBC in September 1950. [2] Adaptation [ edit ] GIRDLE OF GOLD | British Board of Film Classification". www.bbfc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2019-02-22. The 20th Century proved to be a tumultuous period for conflict and war in Ireland. The early part of the era saw The Easter Rising in 1916, followed several years later by the Irish Civil War. The latter part of the century was of course defined by The Troubles in Northern Ireland, which finally culminated in peace with the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. The blu-ray looks terrific. Dearden's direction is very sound and the story is dynamic. It isn't exactly the thriller I expected at first--less pressure, for example, than Odd Man Out and less poetic--but for all that, the story is wide open and resolves sensibly. There's no doubt that any Irishman would find this utter codswallop, though its message is all those English niceties of comfort, steady work, and good sense with stout courage at the heart of it. Overlapping dissolves to reveal a hidden bomb, director Basil Dearden & The Third Key (1956-also reviewed) cinematographer Gordon Dines following the divide between the brothers with an excellent, ultra-stylized Film Noir atmosphere, where Dearden cuts through the crisp high contrast lighting, with jagged panning shots over rugged terrain, push-ins on…

October 8, 2023 , Bradley Hadcroft , No Comment Grimmfest 2023 – Film Review – AUXILIO – The Power of Sin (2023) The Gentle Gunman is a 1950 thriller play by the British writer Roger MacDougall. A former IRA gunman attempts to renounce his violent past, as he is now convinced a non-violent approach is best. Points for the effort, and it’s not a disaster by any means, but it is a bit of a farce when it would have been stronger taking things more seriously.Released in 1952 and starring two of the biggest box-office British actors of the time – John Mills and Dirk Bogarde – The Gentle Gunman is about the Irish Republican Army, and more specifically the “S-Plan” campaign (the “S” stood for sabotage) that it ran on the British mainland from early 1939 until mid-1940, to try to force the government to end the partition of Ulster. The film, based on a play of the same name by the Scottish dramatist Roger MacDougall – which had already been shown on BBC Television in 1950 – is laced with moral ambiguity, though the viewer might well question just how likely it was that such feelings would exist in a real terrorist of the type shown in the film. Despite The Gentle Gunman’s admirable attempt at balanced rather than shallow characterisation, as well as the thrilling direction, things aren’t always perfect. As a drama, the film does stumble occasionally, nowhere more so than in the final moments, which sees the culmination of the previous 80 or so minutes conclude with a weak puff rather than with a dramatic punch. It means that is hard to recommend The Gentle Gunman on its dramatic chops alone, with the film ultimately feeling, despite Dearden’s best efforts, like a bit of a damp squib as the credits roll.

October 28, 2023 , Bradley Hadcroft , No Comment Grimmfest 2023 – Film Review – 8 Found Dead (2023) You can't exactly criticise John Mills' and Dirk Bogarde's Irish accents here because they didn't even bother to try, both sounding as English as ever, which is pretty distracting to say the least—perhaps it's for the best… The main attraction here is the conversation between critics Matthew Sweet and Phoung Le. Recorded as a Zoom conversation, this half hour chat covers a wide variety of subject matter, from the film’s awkward accents all the way through to its politics. It may feel fairly short, but this offers a great deal of interesting facts, context and analysis in its short running time.The British magazine Time Out thought the film was "stiff" and "overplotted", [3] while the British Film Institute thought the film struggled to "find the right tone" and culminated with a "car-crash of an ending". [4] The New York Times thought that the film had "failed to search beneath the surface" of the screen-play and described much of the content as "superficial". [5] Quotes [ edit ]