Ryan's Daughter (1970)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The first must-see film of the year.

Between 1958 and 1970 David Lean directed four miraculous epic movies. "Bridge on the River Kwai" came out in an era of epic productions and may have been the first with a wry sense of humor. The second, "Lawrence of Arabia", is probably the best, having the most telescopic focus. Though "Lawrence" begins in the 1930s, it goes immediately to the 1916-17 Arab Revolt against the 500-year-old Muslim Ottoman Empire and stays there. It's helped along by a great cast, including Peter O'Toole's ethereal, star-making turn as Lawrence. "Doctor Zhivago" improves on its source novel by cutting out subplots. And while the novel ZHIVAGO is phenomenal, its characters feel aloof most of the time, as if Pasternak is writing a history of them rather than a story where they live and breathe. The greater part of "Zhivago" takes place around the same time as the Arab Revolt, in the Russian Revolution.Then we come to "Ryan's Daughter." No one does epic like David Lean. He has an eye for it. Not only do his characters come to life, so do his backdrops. The desert was a character in its own right in "Lawrence." His characters come to life wonderfully, something lost in many epic productions, possibly because Lean's reputation let him hire the best actors."Daughter" is a miraculous movie in many ways, but it's full of problems, the cast foremost. While as full of fine actors as most Lean productions it has some curious missteps. First is Ryan's daughter herself, played by Sarah Miles. Lean just did two movies with title characters, and one expects Ryan's daughter to dominate as much as Peter O'Toole's Lawrence or Omar Sharif's Zhivago.Unfortunately, while Sarah Miles might well be the prettiest girl in an obscure Irish village, she lacks sex appeal. Julie Christie was not the prettiest actress in the world (in some scenes in "Zhivago" she looked like a female Peter O'Toole) but the way she was photographed and lighted, along with her natural attributes, Christie oozed sex in her sexy scenes. Sarah Miles simply doesn't. Miles originally distanced herself from the part as her husband wrote it and Lean tested other actresses. But Miles was Lean's first choice so other tests were probably perfunctory. Miles can act, but she does not project the necessary sex appeal.Miles' co-sex-star Christopher Jones can't act. He was picked up from another movie before Lean learned his entire role was looped by another actor. Jones photographs well, but since he can't do the simplest acting jobs his part is like a lot of still pictures.Then there's Robert Mitchum, the third side to the triangle with Ryan's daughter. If you're a Mitchum fan you wonder why a dynamic actor is cast so against type as a dull, middle-aged Irish schoolteacher. He actually does a fine job (in a role actively sought by the more likely Gregory Peck) but he overpowers Christopher Jones (who was dubbed, as he was in the movie where Lean first saw him).Lean makes a few missteps himself. For "Kwai" and "Lawrence" and "Zhivago" he uses well-known settings. The Irish "Easter Rising" of 1916 may be famous in some quarters, but for most of us it's an historical learning experience that detracts from the story (curiously, "Lawrence" and "Zhivago" and "Daughter" take place at round about the same historical time). David Lean's rebels are always rough and often cold characters, but actors like Anthony Quinn and Tom Courtenay were able to give them depth and interesting new angles. Barry Foster, the lead Irish rebel in "Daughter", comes off as simply brutal.Lean also tries something new, a "dream" sequence where Mitchum's character fancies what's going on between his wife and her lover. Unfortunately, Lean shot it so realistically it comes off as merely confusing as it looks so legitimate.Lean had a wonderful eye for epic detail, and he tries to make a storm on the Irish coast as much a character as the desert in "Lawrence" or the snow in "Zhivago." But his characters are basically small, and the actors are unable to rise to storm level. The storm inundates the characters.With "Daughter" Lean shot an epic from a non-epic story. Overall, it is incredibly delectable visually, like a beautiful Easter bunny that's hollow inside. Perhaps it was the casting of the three main actors in the romantic triangle: the woman who can act who lacks sex appeal, the man who can't act, and the actor who is woefully miscast. As it is, actors in minor parts seem to want to take up the slack. Trevor Howard, John Mills and Leo McKern all chew the scenery wonderfully. After two largely humorless epics, Lean uses wry irony here by making Mills' village idiot the only character in the piece who's aware of what's going on.While considered Lean's big flop (it certainly didn't meet expectations) "Daughter" was the eighth highest grossing movie in 1970 (the leader being another love story called . . . "Love Story." But Lean's flick was also trounced at the box office by "MASH," "Patton" and "The Aristocats." "Daughter"barely scraped in five million more than the bizarre "Chariots of the Gods." Compared to Lean's other epics "Daughter" was a financial and artistic disappointment. Today it seems an unfocused jumble that lacks the narrative force or the strong characters of his other epics. But no Lean movie is without merit and "Daughter" is luscious eye candy for those who have the patience to veg through nearly 200 hours of unremitting loveliness, where the scenery and design are miles ahead of the characters. Peter O'Toole was able to stand in the desert and be a focus, the way John Wayne took the eye when he stood in Monument Valley. In the storm of "Ryan's Daughter" the characters are merely dark figures running back and forth and being deluged.

The 19 movies credited to director David Lean include "Brief Encounter", Dickens movies "Oliver Twist" & "Great Expectations", "Hobson's Choice", "The Bridge On The River Kwai", "Lawrence Of Arabia & "Doctor Zhivago". Many of us film fans & critics alike regard him as the greatest movie director who ever lived & his credit list would certainly support that. So when "Ryan's Daughter" was released in 1970 it received such a battering from the critics that David Lean was terribly upset. So much so that he never made another movie until "A Passage To India" 14 years later, which was to be his last. The critics thought "Ryan's Daughter" a slight story that was both overblown & overlong. There may be some validity to their criticism regarding the story but, notwithstanding, it is still a visual work of art. Freddy Young's cinematography under Lean's direction is utterly magnificent as well as extremely beautiful which, for me & most people it seems, just make it a joy to watch. It is set in 1916 after the outbreak of WW1 in a village on the west coast of Ireland & stars Sarah Miles in the title role. She plays Rosy the daughter of local publican Thomas Ryan (Leo McKern). Much to her father's dismay Rosy marries middle-aged schoolmaster Charles Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum), whose first wife died young. She finds her marriage not as fulfilling as she hoped for & begins an affair with a handsome British army officer (Christopher Jones). He has been posted to Ireland after receiving a serious leg injury in the war in Europe & also suffers from shell-shock. John Mills won his only Oscar playing the village idiot Michael & Trevor Howard is also memorable playing the dour, down-to-earth village vicar Father Collins. For anyone who has never seen this movie, take no notice of the critics. As Tony the Tiger said, IT'S GRRRRREAT!!!.

On the one hand, there's a fine cast, beautiful photography, serviceable music, and sensitive direction. On the other, an over-long, laborious script and stagy crowd business. There's also a rather small, intimate romance that seems to need a smaller-scale production format (like a "Brief Encounter") rather than a grandiose blockbuster presentation (like a "Laurence of Arabia").However, the film seems to be improving its image as time goes on, and David Lean's slow direction and grandiose production scale appears to be less criticized. The challenges the production experienced were formidable, from drugged and dubbed actors to injured and conflicted production personnel. Fortunately--especially for MGM Studios--the film wasn't a financial disaster.Poor Chris Jones received a public and critical pounding, which probably contributed to his abandonment entirely of the acting profession. Still, his final product came out alright--a kind of Dean/Brando quality piece of work. Robert Mitchum's against-type performance was surprisingly successful, and Sarah Miles was strong throughout.Likewise the ugly, though exaggerated, nature of the townsfolk mob contrasted well with the breathtaking landscape. In the end, the film rates about 2 1/2 out of four stars, and only time will tell whether it will further improve.

I first saw it, back in the Nineties, in Spanish language on a TV screening with so many commercial breaks that this three-hour-and-a- quarter long movie went on for five hours. But the long night was worth, because I totally loved the film. It is a big shame that this beautiful film was so viciously massacred by the critics on its day when it is full of poetry and it contains some the most beautiful images ever committed to film. I can watch it almost without realising its great length and never find it boring for a minute, because there are so many beautiful details to look at in the carefully composed shots, the unique wild beauty of Ireland and the fantastic art direction. Now, the PC brigade will probably blacklist me for saying this: John Mills won the Oscar, we all know, but I find his character tiring and irritating to the point that at the scene where he plays with the explosives I still wish he will blow himself up. The always laconic and tough Robert Mitchum delivers a very solid performance as the gentle schoolmaster. The critics dismissed him as a total miscast,just like they had done with Burt Lancaster in "The Leopard" simply because they couldn't take in the idea of a cowboy playing a European aristocrat. Mitchum's character is sensitive and self-composed, a man of dignity and fine manners. He takes his pupils out to show them the natural environment in which they live and explain to them how things work. After discovering Rosie's infidelity, he still wants to be with her because he loves her and wants to give her a second chance. Even as if Catholics they could never divorce, there was always the choice for him to leave her. But he doesn't do that. That was another reason why the critics dismissed his character as ridiculous, saying that any normal husband would have gone away and leave the slut to rot.Trevor Howard is my second favourite actor in the film. One always expects a Catholic priest to be a sort of Torquemada, but this man is much more open-minded and tolerant than any of the numbers in his flock. He sees Rosie's infidelity not as a sin but as a moment of weakness that she can get over with if she pulls herself together. Rather than vilifying and excommunicating her for adultery, he tries to help her. He condemns the villagers' savage intolerance instead and blesses the two spouses as they go away to start a new life elsewhere. The usually rough and unsympathetic Howard gives here one of his best performances ever, and looks totally credible in the role. Miles's character loves her husband but then she discovers there is something missing in their marriage. The only time they make love he is too gentle and almost shy and finishes quickly, to her disappointment. Also, she finds his hobbies very dull and she feels he is keener on them rather on spending time with her. So she is frustrated, no matter how nice and gentle he is to her. Then a much younger and handsomer man comes along and her lust is suddenly unleashed. Many people may think that for being a Catholic she ought to be morally stronger and more virtuous, but precisely because of the moral repression she has always suffered in that tight-close redneck community, she has reached the point when her sexual urges get out of control. Much mockery rose on its day upon Christopher Miles's wooden acting and the fact that he had to be dubbed. But in my opinion he is not as bad in the role as everyone back then said he is. The character behaves like an automaton and looks sick because he is just coming out of a mental breakdown from shell-shock after the horrors he went through in the trenches. It is something that happened to many soldiers who survived World War One.They returned home as broken men for life, suffering from constant nightmares and phobias. So the way Jones acts is just adequate to the circumstances of the character. And the actor cannot be blamed for the dullness he displays. To his credit, I think he did a decently good job within his limited acting skills.Fortunately this magnificent film has been is now enjoying a new breath of life. Those of us who love it are lucky enough to enjoy it on DVD even if the small screen can't fully capture the sheer grandiosity of Freddie Young's spectacular cinematography. But at least we have it, and that is the most important thing.