The Rising of the Moon

TCM ran a bunch of movies set in Ireland back on St. Patrick's Day, and one that's on DVD that I actually hadn't seen before is The Rising of the Moon.

John Ford directed the movie, which is an anthology of three stories about different aspects of Ireland. Tyrone Power, an Irish-American, introduces the stories standing at the front door of one of those lovely townhouses that you'd see not only in Dublin, but in vintage London movies such as The Wrong Box (at least, the type of house looked quite similar to me). The cast is mostly Irish actors who, as far as I know, didn't go on to have big careers in the movies.

The closest exception to that would probably by Cyril Cusack, who appears in the first story, "The Majesty of the Law". He plays a policeman who is looking for a moonshiner, but gets mixed up in trying to arrest an old man who committed assault and doesn't want to pay the £5 fine, a fairly substantial sum back then. Eventually most of the other locals come to support the old man and his stubbornness.

The second story, "A Minute's Wait", is set at a railway station in a small village in the middle of nowhere. The train is supposed to stop for one minute to let passengers on and off, but this is a part of the world where time has no meaning, much to the chagrin of an English couple. The train is delayed repeatedly for stuff to go to a celebration for the bishop, a hurling team, and lots of other things.

Finally, there's "1921", based on a play called "The Rising of the Moon" which itself took its name from an old Irish folk tune from around 1800. This one deals with the Irish revolution and a man Sean Curran (Donal Donnelly) who is sentenced to hang for treason, but who has a lot of support among regular Dubliners. Two actresses dressed as nuns help him escape, and a policeman has to make the decision whether to turn him in for the £500 reward or go with his wife, who is on Curran's side.

The stories are all reasonably well done, although people who take the more doe-eyed American view of olde Ireland will probably enjoy them most. I found some of the characters to be almost stereotypes of the quirky rural old-fashioned person that are supposed to be charming, but often come across on film as irritating. (This isn't just about Ireland; I mentioned the same thing in my review of Antonia's Line.) It's too bad the movie wasn't in color, as the rural Ireland of the first two stories probably would have looked great, especially with Ford directing.