Juno and the Paycock *** (1929, Edward Chapman, Sara Allgood, Maire O’Neill, Kathleen O’Regan, John Laurie) – Classic Movie Review 2290

Director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville make rather heavy weather of their struggle with their 1929 movie adaptation of Sean O’Casey’s doomy successful classic play about a hard-pressed family living in the slums of Dublin during the Irish Civil War in the 1920s Troubles.

Fortunately, Sara Allgood reprises her role as Juno from the play and lives up to her name in her all-good performance at the head of a strong, hard-working, effective cast. Hitchcock turns in an uncharacteristically flat, stagey film, filming a faithful reproduction of the play with few of his usual directorial touches, getting cinematographer Jack Cox to shoot in long single shots.

However, with the play solely set in the family’s flat, Hitchcock wanted a scene set outside the flat inserted into the film, and added a pub scene after getting permission from O’Casey, who impressed Hitchcock, and was the inspiration for the prophet of doom in the diner in The Birds.

Barry Fitzgerald, who played Captain Jack Boyle in the original stage production, appears as an orator in the first scene, but otherwise has no other role. So instead, in the movie, Edward Chapman stars as Captain Boyle, who lives in a two-room tenement flat with his wife Juno and children Mary (Kathleen O’Regan) and Johnny (John Laurie).

Juno calls her husband the Paycock because she thinks he’s as useless and vain as a peacock. Juno works while the Captain loafs around the flat when not drinking away the family’s meagre finances at the local pub.

The family receives a big inheritance and start leading the good life, forgetting the true values. [Spoiler alert] They discover they won’t get the inheritance after all through an error in drafting the will and that they are penniless, forced to sell their home and live like paupers. Johnny is taken from the flat by the IRA and his body is later found riddled with bullets. Realising that their family has been destroyed, Mary declares: ‘It’s true. There is no God.’

‘It’s an excellent play,’ said Hitch, ‘but I could see no way of narrating it in cinematic form.’

It is John Laurie’s film debut: Hitchcock memorably used him again as the sinister crofter in The 39 Steps. Also in the cast are Maire O’Neill, Sidney Morgan and John Longden (as Charlie Bentham), who played in five Hitchcock films, scoring a notable success with Blackmail (1929).

The original running time is 85 minutes but the restored DVD version runs 96 minutes. It is also known as The Shame of Mary Boyle.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2290

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com