Young Cassidy (1965) We've never thought of this film as a perennial favorite of ours......but then we just realized that we always end up watching it year after year......wherever and whenever we find it......
Good God......we just now viewed it again and as imperfect as it is, we still love every damn minute of it. Maybe it's time to jump on to Amazon to buy the DVD or Blu-Ray......
Originally begun by master director John Ford, 90 per cent of it ended up in the hands of director (and master cinematographer) Jack Cardiff.....(Ford fell ill two weeks into shooting).
The film's a robust, rambunctious, heart-on-its-Irish-sleeve biography of famed playwright-author Sean O' Casey, though fictionalized and heavily romanticized In its colorful collection of events and incidents in early 20th century Ireland, O' Casey's been re-named as John Cassidy and perfectly played with rough-and-tumble physicality by Rod Taylor, then at the very height of his career as a versatile leading man.
(The under-appreciated Taylor could do everything from action-packed Westerns to Doris Day comedies....and a few years after 'Young Cassidy', Jack Cardiff would direct him in one of his best known roles, as the super tough mercenary of "Dark Of The Sun")
As Taylor's Cassidy struggles as a day laborer in the grinding poverty-stricken Dublin streets, he burns what little midnight oil he and his family have left, scribbling away books, essays and plays. He briefly joins the Irish rebels planning for war on the occupying British, but grows impatient and disillusioned with their ragtag amateur incompetence......
And sure enough, the 'Rising' as it was called, gets crushed in a spectacularly brutal sequence that features the rebels cut down by machine gun fire and hapless civilians blown up in the streets. Cassidy survives the chaos, with even a little time to dally with a effervescent prostitute. (Julie Christie, right on the verge of international stardom in "Darling" and "Doctor Zhivago")
After the tragic deaths of his mother and sister, the film's second half concentrates on Cassidy's ascendance as a controversial fledgling playwright for the legendary Abbey Theater, where he's mentored and encouraged by no less than W.B. Yeats (Michael Redgrave).
As his plays stun and outrage Dublin audiences with their unflinching look at Irish society, Cassidy romances the great love of his life, a shy, adorable bookshop clerk wonderfully played by yet another actress on the cusp of superstardom, Maggie Smith.
The film's episodic structure and uneven pacing ultimately dilute some its dramatic power, but Jack Cardiff's quick, muscular direction gives it plenty of forward momentum, right up to its somewhat abrupt ending.....(we were so taken with the cast and story, we honestly wouldn't have minded if it kept going for another hour or so....)
As for John Ford's brief contributions before he had to bow out of the film, the only sequence we could spot as genuinely Ford-ian is a fast, funny riotous bar brawl scene featuring veteran, classically trained Irish actors T.P. Mackenna and Jack McGowran as Rod Taylor's brothers.
While not a complete success as a film, "Young Cassidy" contains enough memorable moments and great actors to make it a BQ yearly favorite......come to think of it, it most definitely rates 4 stars with us (****)......(now pardon us while we shop for our own copy......)
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