It’s a bit weird that they don’t cast actual Irish people in this. I mean they’re not hard to find - there’s a whole island of them somewhere out in the Atlantic. The British magazine Time Out thought the film was "stiff" and "overplotted", [3] while the British Film Institute thought the film struggled to "find the right tone" and culminated with a "car-crash of an ending". [4] The New York Times thought that the film had "failed to search beneath the surface" of the screen-play and described much of the content as "superficial". [5] Quotes [ edit ] Overlapping dissolves to reveal a hidden bomb, director Basil Dearden & The Third Key (1956-also reviewed) cinematographer Gordon Dines following the divide between the brothers with an excellent, ultra-stylized Film Noir atmosphere, where Dearden cuts through the crisp high contrast lighting, with jagged panning shots over rugged terrain, push-ins on…

The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our Dirk Bogarde and John Mills deliver fairly engaging performances (although both are let down by some rather ropey Irish accents, with Mill’s attempt especially bad, seemingly taking in a tour around the British Isles by way of Belfast). While both actors were big names at the time, Bogarde’s role certainly plays second fiddle to John Mill’s more commanding and dominant older brother. In fact, Bogarde’s performance in The Gentle Gunman feels rather restrained, his character coming across as ineffectual and subdued for most of the running time, certainly standing in marked contrast to his more violent and belligerent turn in The Blue Lamp. Robert Beatty, playing committed IRA commander Shinto, arguably makes the biggest impression out of the central three characters, playing his role with a steely sense of cold determination. John Mills, Dirk Bogarde and Robert Beatty are near perfection together in this Basil Dearden film about two Irish brothers working for the I.R.A. in Britain during WWII. Mills is the older brother with a conscience, having been around long enough to become aware of the real costs of the conflict. Bogarde is younger, more idealistic and pragmatic, determined to support the cause while suppressing occasional misgivings. Beatty carries the weight of leadership, often coming across as ruthless in his determination. Also noteworthy is Barbara Mullen's performance as the mother who has had to endure the loss of her husband and eldest son. October 8, 2023 , Bradley Hadcroft , No Comment Grimmfest 2023 – Film Review – AUXILIO – The Power of Sin (2023) John Mills won an Oscar for Ryan's Daughter. Playing an Irishman. Who was mute. This last point is most relevant since, on the basis of this film, dear Johnny - of whom I am very fond - couldn't do an Irish accent for toffee. Here, he and Dirk Bogarde play Republican brothers - suspend that disbelief! - at odds over how to fight the English during the Second World War.Released in 1952 and starring two of the biggest box-office British actors of the time – John Mills and Dirk Bogarde – The Gentle Gunman is about the Irish Republican Army, and more specifically the “S-Plan” campaign (the “S” stood for sabotage) that it ran on the British mainland from early 1939 until mid-1940, to try to force the government to end the partition of Ulster. The film, based on a play of the same name by the Scottish dramatist Roger MacDougall – which had already been shown on BBC Television in 1950 – is laced with moral ambiguity, though the viewer might well question just how likely it was that such feelings would exist in a real terrorist of the type shown in the film.

A tonally odd, dramatically stilted and misguided look at Anglo-Irish relations that's just about held together by the skilled direction of Basil Dearden and Gordon Dines' crisp, visually striking photography, this adaptation of Roger MacDougall's play is most interesting when the action relocates outside of the two prominent locations featured in the screenplay, showcasing some stunning Irish countryside and at certain points that feature the iconography of a gangster movie, recalling Dearden's work on crime noirs Pool of London and The Blue Lamp. Although its boss, Michael Balcon, could be a mild autocrat, Ealing Studios took a democratic approach to the content of its films. When most higher-budget British films were about royalty, the nobility, toffs or (at worst) the middle classes, Balcon’s arrival at Ealing in 1938, and the war in 1939, saw the “ordinary” man become central to the studio’s output. Toffs became confined to romantic costume dramas, such as 1948’s Saraband for Dead Lovers (about George I’s wife, and one of the studio’s least successful films), or, the following year, the magnificent Kind Hearts and Coronets, an extravaganza of such decadence and depravity that Balcon, and indeed many viewers, did not understand quite how decadent and depraved it was. October 30, 2023 , Joel Fisher , No Comment Pigeon Shrine Halloween Frightfest Film Review – Maria (2023)

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It’s quite a daring story actually, about an IRA terrorist who loses his taste for violence, derails a plan to blow up a war time bomb shelter full of children and in doing so gets his compatriots arrested. While not an example of any of the participants’ finest works, The Gentle Gunman is still a compelling film. The acting performances bring a passion and warmth which makes us care about the sympathetic characters, and somewhat pity and despise their rivals. Basil Dearden brings us the intensity that the subject demands. And while this film may not accurately represent the Irish conflict, nor add any context that we couldn’t find elsewhere, it is somewhat sympathetic to both sides. It allows points of view to breathe, and also to overlap, as in life. The Gentle Gunman is a 1952 British drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring John Mills, Dirk Bogarde and Elizabeth Sellars. The film is based on a 1950 play of the same title by Roger MacDougall [1] that was televised by the BBC in September 1950. [2] It was produced by Ealing Studios. The film's sets were designed by the art director Jim Morahan. The fact that, in 1952, this opens with an explicit parallel between Germany's invasive territory-grabbing in WWII and that of Britain in Ireland is quite something. It premiered at the Cambridge Arts Theatre before transferring to the Arts Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 31 performances between 2 and 27 August 1950. The original London cast included Henry Hewitt, Robin Bailey, Victor Maddern, Larry Burns, Michael Golden, Harry Towb, Eddie Byrne, Kevin Stoney, Louise Hampton and Maureen Pryor. [1] The production was televised by the BBC in September 1950. [2] Adaptation [ edit ]