Tyrone Power introduces this trio of short films shot on a minuscule budget on The Auld Sod by John Ford.
"The Majesty of the Law" has police official Cyril Cusack visiting Noel Purcell, an old friend, now reduced to near-poverty on his rural land. There is a lot of chit chat about the good old days being gone forever, the old arts being lost, the old ballads forgotten, "what with the newspapers and the movies and the RAH-dio, and now this new thing...." It develops gradually that Purcell refuses to pay a fine for lathering a blackguard, although he has the money stashed in a fireplace brick. Cusack tells him that, in that case, he'll have to come to the prison and serve his sentence. Purcell is cooperative enough and asks if Friday will be a good day for him to show up -- after dinner. Cusack agrees. You're sure they'll be expecting me?, Purcell asks, I wouldn't want to just -- barge in on them." A touching tale with some charm.
"One Minute's Wait" is about a train that stops briefly at a rural station and is continually prevented from leaving by one thing or another. The passengers and crew are constantly rushing back and forth from the train to the pub. A dignified elderly British couple is the butt of many of the jokes. "Is this another of their rebellions, dear?", asks the staid wife. The couple are the only passengers to be left behind. It has its funny moments.
"The Rising of the Moon" is from a one-act play by Lady Gregory, whom Tyrone Power assures us optimistically we've all heard of. An American woman posing as a nun helps an Irish prisoner escape from a British jail just before he's about to be executed. It is redeemed chiefly by the police constable of the DMP played by Denis O'Dea, who was the street singer in Ford's "The Informer" in 1935.
The movie is in black and white and the score consists of two instruments, harp and flute, well played. The actors are mostly members of the Abbey Theater in Dublin and respected in the profession.
The script rambles a good deal in search of folksy and whimsical charm and sometimes captures it, especially in the comic interlude. The Irish, whatever else they may or may not be, have a winning way with words if not ideas. Here's a sample of lines.
A man "took to drink and died before his time at eighty six." Another will save the end of his ghost story "until I have more congenital company." One man flatters another by calling him "your immanence." A father tells someone that he wants his son to have a good wife "and suffer like the rest of us." The young lady tending bar in the pub answers the phone: "What'll you have?" A man insults another by telling him that his ancestor "was seen in famine times, God help us, creeping up a boleen -- with a bowl of SOUP!" There's a bewitching quality in that phraseology and it's not made up. During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, a reporter was sent to Ireland to locate the ancestral home of the Reagan's and finally located a small cottage. He asked a neighbor if the house was the genuine article. The neighbor stuttered a bit and answered -- not "I don't know" -- but, "Well, I can't say it is but I won't say it isn't." But Ford's direction is largely slapdash, as if he weren't really paying attention. And the last, most dramatic episode, about the escape of the prisoner held by the British, comes off worst. We don't know what the prisoner did, for one thing. Thirteen years after this release, the IRA took to violence again and began blowing up Harrod's, leaving the police to shovel body parts from the streets. Maybe the escapee didn't deserve to get out. And Ford shoots it as if he wanted to turn it into a masterpiece of German expressionism, with crazy, tilted camera angles, and looming shadows. It doesn't work.
It's a minor piece from Ford. The second section is a leisurely delight. The first story is even more leisurely but still an entertaining story of character. The third is a total failure.
"The Majesty of the Law" has police official Cyril Cusack visiting Noel Purcell, an old friend, now reduced to near-poverty on his rural land. There is a lot of chit chat about the good old days being gone forever, the old arts being lost, the old ballads forgotten, "what with the newspapers and the movies and the RAH-dio, and now this new thing...." It develops gradually that Purcell refuses to pay a fine for lathering a blackguard, although he has the money stashed in a fireplace brick. Cusack tells him that, in that case, he'll have to come to the prison and serve his sentence. Purcell is cooperative enough and asks if Friday will be a good day for him to show up -- after dinner. Cusack agrees. You're sure they'll be expecting me?, Purcell asks, I wouldn't want to just -- barge in on them." A touching tale with some charm.
"One Minute's Wait" is about a train that stops briefly at a rural station and is continually prevented from leaving by one thing or another. The passengers and crew are constantly rushing back and forth from the train to the pub. A dignified elderly British couple is the butt of many of the jokes. "Is this another of their rebellions, dear?", asks the staid wife. The couple are the only passengers to be left behind. It has its funny moments.
"The Rising of the Moon" is from a one-act play by Lady Gregory, whom Tyrone Power assures us optimistically we've all heard of. An American woman posing as a nun helps an Irish prisoner escape from a British jail just before he's about to be executed. It is redeemed chiefly by the police constable of the DMP played by Denis O'Dea, who was the street singer in Ford's "The Informer" in 1935.
The movie is in black and white and the score consists of two instruments, harp and flute, well played. The actors are mostly members of the Abbey Theater in Dublin and respected in the profession.
The script rambles a good deal in search of folksy and whimsical charm and sometimes captures it, especially in the comic interlude. The Irish, whatever else they may or may not be, have a winning way with words if not ideas. Here's a sample of lines.
A man "took to drink and died before his time at eighty six." Another will save the end of his ghost story "until I have more congenital company." One man flatters another by calling him "your immanence." A father tells someone that he wants his son to have a good wife "and suffer like the rest of us." The young lady tending bar in the pub answers the phone: "What'll you have?" A man insults another by telling him that his ancestor "was seen in famine times, God help us, creeping up a boleen -- with a bowl of SOUP!" There's a bewitching quality in that phraseology and it's not made up. During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, a reporter was sent to Ireland to locate the ancestral home of the Reagan's and finally located a small cottage. He asked a neighbor if the house was the genuine article. The neighbor stuttered a bit and answered -- not "I don't know" -- but, "Well, I can't say it is but I won't say it isn't." But Ford's direction is largely slapdash, as if he weren't really paying attention. And the last, most dramatic episode, about the escape of the prisoner held by the British, comes off worst. We don't know what the prisoner did, for one thing. Thirteen years after this release, the IRA took to violence again and began blowing up Harrod's, leaving the police to shovel body parts from the streets. Maybe the escapee didn't deserve to get out. And Ford shoots it as if he wanted to turn it into a masterpiece of German expressionism, with crazy, tilted camera angles, and looming shadows. It doesn't work.
It's a minor piece from Ford. The second section is a leisurely delight. The first story is even more leisurely but still an entertaining story of character. The third is a total failure.