Such a frustrating disappointment

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Set in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising, a married woman (Sarah Miles) in a small Irish village has an affair with a troubled British officer. (The film is a very loose adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's novel "Madame Bovary".) Alec Guinness turned down the role of Father Collins; it had been written with him in mind, but Guinness, as a devout Roman Catholic, objected to what he felt was an inaccurate portrayal of a Catholic priest. His conflicts with Lean while making "Doctor Zhivago" also contributed. A shame, as Guinness would have added a little more to the production.Two things I feel are worth noting. One is Robert Mitchum's accent. I may be wrong, but I don't think Mitchum ever naturally had an Irish accent. He pulls it off alright, at least to my American ears. It is nice to see him here in a less gruff role than usual.Also, this somehow got a PG rating. I know the story about this happened, but really? A nude sex scene was given a PG? Granted, this is not the sort of movie kids are going to run out and rent or buy... but wow. I can understand why jack Valenti thought this was a huge mistake on the part of the MPAA.

It's 1916 Ireland in an isolated backwards village. Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles) is the fancy modern daughter of the pub owner. Father Hugh Collins (Trevor Howard) urges her to find a husband. Michael is the town simpleton ridiculed by the townfolks. Charles Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum) is the dashing schoolmaster and he marries Rosy. Major Randolph Doryan (Christopher Jones) takes command of the British troops in town. Rosy falls for the British officer and they have a passionate affair. The Irish revolutionaries led by Tim O'Leary (Barry Foster) arrive expecting a shipment of arms.The movie is too long especially the first half. The first half seems to be some melodramatic romance. The second half is more compelling with better drama. Also Sarah Miles lacks the acting power needed to hold such a wide epic. The Irish mob seems cartoonish at times although they are well served at other times. It remains a mix bag of boredom and compelling drama.

As often happens with great talent, the public's expectations often bring the artist down with a crash. We saw it with as disparate talents as Tennessee Williams, David O. Selznick, and here we see it with David Lean.Lean was one of the great filmmakers of the 20th century, capable of doing intimate films like Brief Encounter and huge epics like Lawrence of Arabia. And therein lies the problem. How could the director of Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia give the public anything less than a masterpiece? Well, even the greats are entitled to take on a challenge, and not everything they do has to be magnificent. Artists should be allowed to grow and expand.In doing Ryan's Daughter, Lean faced some challenges that were difficult to overcome.First, let's look at the positives. On the big screen, this must have been overwhelmingly beautiful to watch. The landscapes, the beach, the town, the incredible storm -- a feast for the eyes.Then there are sublime performances by Robert Mitchum and Sarah Miles as a schoolteacher, Charles, and his wife, Rosy. He's a simple man and not very exciting; she's a young woman with no worldly experience whose life is turned upside down when she falls in love with a British soldier (Christopher Jones) with PTSD. Leo McCrary plays her father, a gruff but weak man, and he's excellent even if he did hate making this movie. He wasn't alone. Robert Mitchum had messages to Lean delivered by Sarah Miles, and Sarah Miles was furious having to act opposite Christopher Jones.To continue with the cast, most of them are excellent, including Trevor Howard as the local priest and John Mills as the Village Idiot. The latter is the kind of role that wins Oscars, and this one followed the formula, winning one for Mills.In making this film, Lean was faced with the difficulty of the weather, which at times hung up the filming for as long as four weeks. No matter how good you are, crossing paths with Mother Nature somehow never works. The best part of this film is the storm scene, terrifying in its scope. How Lean filmed it at all is a miracle.His other problem was Christopher Jones, a total disaster. Lean cast him on the basis of seeing him in another film, but at the time, he didn't realize the actor had been dubbed. He soon learned that not only could Jones not act, but he refused to do the kind of love scenes that Lean had been eager to shoot since his Brief Encounter days, when the code was in place.Jones would not participate in the love scenes with Miles, which angered her. What angered her further no doubt was the fact that Jones apparently said he wasn't attracted to her. I guess he thought he was attending a college mixer and not there to do a job. Did he think she was attracted to him, and that's why she was willing to do the scenes? They were critical to her character, showing her in a passionate love affair, her awakening as a full woman.Lean wound up cheating the love scenes and hiring Julian Holloway to dub Jones, after taking most of his lines away from him. Jones should have been embarrassed, but he probably wasn't. I interviewed him some years ago. He was given a lot of opportunities. He blew them.Set during the Easter Rising of 1916, Ryan's Daughter is a beautiful movie, if overlong and with too sprightly music given the plot. The ending is ambiguous, but I think we can conclude what will happen.This is a story of betrayal, adultery, cruelty, passion, and love. It's not Lean's greatest. But any Lean film is worth seeing and a lot better than probably 80% of the films out there.

Lean's Ryan's Daughter is sadly undervalued by many as they thought him past his best, when, five years after Doctor Zhivago, he constructed a whole new village on the Dingle Peninsular on the west coast of Ireland and spent over a year on his indulgence.This beautifully filmed epic, on 70mm negative, might not have the cold harshness of Zhivago, or the scorching majesty of Lawrence of Arabia, but still remains my very favourite film set in and filmed in Ireland.John Mills, as the village idiot steals every scene he's in and leaves us his legacy as a very adaptable actor and Trevor Howard, as a priest. In a brave casting, Robert Mitchum is the teacher who is married to the beautiful and beguiling Sarah Miles, whom she finds his lack of husbandly attention responsible to her becoming attracted to others. The film, a first for Lean, is rated as '15' for a very tasteful outdoor sex scene that involves Miss Miles....The political agenda is always bubbling away, set in both World War 1 and the Uprising, with the locals even siding with the Germans, so anti- British was the feeling. Leo McKern, as the village's Publican, who poses as a Republican and such was Lean's quest for reality that there's actual bloody injury detail incurred during a real storm that the director insisted they filmed in. That it wasn't edited out afterward is also testament to Lean's personal stamp on his cherished creation.Perhaps the star of Ryan's Daughter will always be Freddie Francis' Oscar winning cinematography - the backdrops really are akin to giant, living canvasses. However, unlike the majority of Lean's epics, only two Academy Awards were scooped, the other going to the deserving John Mills.