1962 - THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, a film version of the famout Irish play

Written in the 1900's by Irish playwright John Millington Synge.  The Playboy of the Western World is in generally considered one of the highlights of the Irish theater.  In 1962 the director Brian Desmond Hurst released an adaption of the play that was filmed on location in Ireland with Irish actors.

The play is considered sort of a tragic comedy.  One night a mysterious stranger shows up at an Irish pub claiming that he killed his father after an argument.  If you think he is going to be turned into the authorities, guess again.  He becomes a hero to the village and has all the women of the village sighing over him particularly a strong willed woman named Pegeen Mike who wants to marry him.  Since this is a comedy, it turns out the father called " Da" is not dead after all.  He shows up looking for his son with the end result of shattering the Irish village's illusions about him.

 

Well the technical credits on this film are impressive.  Brian Desmond Hurst was a talented producer/director.  The cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth went on to film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cabaret and Murder on the Orient Express to name just a few. The actor Siobhán McKenna was an award winning performer.  Amusingly the titular character "Christy Mahon,"  the playboy was played by the actor Gary Raymond who I chiefly remember from Ray Harryhausen's Jason and the Argonauts where he gets killed by a seven headed Hydra monster.

 

So what's the problem with this film?  Well the Irish brogue and dialog are so thick that I had to turn on the subtitles to understand what was going on and thank god the disc had subtitles.  Even with the subtitles a viewer would probably have to stay very alert to the story.  Still there is no arguing that the dialog in the film has an incredible lyrical quality to it.  At times it is very pleasing to the ears.

The film was written by Brian Desmond Hurst and Roland Kibee, the running time is 100 minutes.