The Quare Fellow ***½ (1962, Patrick McGoohan, Sylvia Syms, Walter Macken) – Classic Movie Review 10,918

Underrated actor Patrick McGoohan grabs his opportunity as Thomas Crimmin, a new young Dublin prison warder questioning his views on capital punishment at the imminent hanging of a condemned man, in writer-director Arthur Dreifuss’s 1963 black and white Irish crime drama film The Quare Fellow [Queen of Hearts].

This useful reminder of Brendan Behan’s famed play is a decent movie, appropriately Irish filmed at Ardmore Studios, Herbert Road, Bray, County Wicklow, taking sensible liberties with the original to provide a satisfyingly cinematic experience.

Among the earnest, effective performances, Sylvia Syms is also persuasive as Kathleen, the condemned prisoner’s wife with whom Crimmin (McGoohan) has an affair.

The play’s story is set in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, but The Quare Fellow is never seen or heard and he is condemned to die the following day for an unmentioned crime. The Quare Fellow is Brendan Behan’s first play, first produced in 1954 with the title using an Irish pronunciation of the word ‘queer’ meaning strange or unusual here. The play does feature a gay character, but he is referred to as The Other Fellow, a very camp gay man, Enoch Jenkinson (Brian Hewitt-Jones).

The play premièred at the Pike Theatre Club, Herbert Lane, Dublin, on 19 November 1954 and had its London première in May 1956 at Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. It transferred to London’s Comedy Theatre, on 24 July 1956.

The play, based on Behan’s own prison experiences, is a grimly realistic portrait of prison life in Ireland in the 1950s, and a reminder of the days when homosexuality was illegal and the death penalty relatively common – 35 people were executed between 1923 and 1954, one every 10 and a half months.

The interior prison scenes were filmed in Dublin’s Kilmainham Gaol, now shut down but open for tours by the public.

Its budget was £147,322.

The script is by German-born American film director Arthur Dreifuss (screenplay and adaptation) and Jacqueline Sundstrom (adaptation).

Also in the cast are Walter Macken, Dermot Kelly, Hilton Edwards, Jack Cunningham, Philip O’Flynn, Leo McCabe, Norman Rodway, Marie Kean, Pauline Delany, Geoff Golden, Tom Irwin, Joseph O’Donnell, Agnes Bernelle, Iris Lawler, Dominic Roche, Brian Hewitt-Jones, Arthur O’Sullivan, Aubrey Morris, Eamonn Brennan, James Brennan, James Caffrey, Robert Bernal, T P McKenna, David Kelly, Frank O’Donovan, John Welsh, and Desmond O’Neill.

The Quare Fellow [Queen of Hearts] is directed by Arthur Dreifuss, runs 85 minutes, is made by Liger Films, is released by Bryanston Films (1962) (UK) and Astor Pictures Corporation (1963) (US), is written by Arthur Dreifuss (screenplay and adaptation) and Jacqueline Sundstrom (adaptation), is shot in black and white by Peter Hennessy, is produced by Anthony Havelock-Allan, is scored by Alexander Faris and is designed by Edward Marshall [Ted Marshall].

It was released by Odeon Entertainment (2007) (UK) (DVD).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,918

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