Wonderful character development!

Memorable, crazy movie

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is a marvelous piece of theater (yes: theater) put on a roll of film and released as a movie. The images are not that important, the real importance lies in the WORDS: the way the words are connected one to the other in the text, with silences, spaces, italics and all, and the way they are PRONOUNCED. This is a work for voices, conceived by Dylan Thomas (I think) for the radio, not for the TV (1954). As a matter of fact the subtitle says: "A Play for Voices". And here you have almost the best as far as voices are concerned: Burton, O'Toole, the others. You could as well shut your eyes and simply listen. I did it, and found myself dreamily trying to follow the rhythm of the voices

Dylan Thomas, whose surname was borrowed by someone born Zimmerman, was a weaver of words. He wrote a radio play, not a film script. If you have the DVD, put on your blindfold or turn your back to the wall. The visual elements, although they merge well enough with a faithful adaptation of Thomas' words, add little and tend to distract.If you insist on watching, there are some irrelevant treats. It's good to see Elizabeth Taylor playing a scrubber (of a floor). The casting director must have had a sense of humour to give David Jason, not the most authentic of Welshmen, the Onanistic part of Nogood Boyo.Sometimes a verbal work is enriched when embedded in pictures. Not so with 'Under Milk Wood'. Thomas demands attention with the ears, not the eyes. This film is a worthy but misguided attempt to bring the work of a great writer to people who can't be bothered to read or listen.Dylan Thomas knew best: this is 'a play for voices'.

Dylan Thomas's poetic flow is all that counts with 'Under Milk Wood.' Perhaps it could have been made poetic visually as well, but this effort doesn't prove it. In fact, the direction is pedestrian, and some odd liberties with the text (the scene in the barn with Burton & Davies getting it on with a woman, for instance) only makes things worse since it is the text that matters.Then there is Richard Burton. No doubt that he would be THE actor for this film being a fellow Welshman like Thomas and a champion of the writer's work, but he is actually a bizarre presence in this film. He and Ryan Davies play a pair of wanderers drifting through town, their characters having little interaction with the folks, but Burton's character somehow has an omniscient knowledge of all of them. Burton doesn't speak on camera: his vocal performance is all voice-over narration. Ryan Davies never speaks a word on camera or off, as if he wandered in from a silent movie. Sadly, Burton strolls through the entire film with a goofy grin on his face, looking pale and drunk. And his wife Liz Taylor, handed a cameo, maintains her hideous late 60's makeup and renders herself unwatchable. But to be fair there are a lot of pretty women in this film and they are continuously slobbered over by a series of ugly Welshmen. The other featured star is Peter O'Toole as the blind Captain Cat. I admire this actor but he carries himself strangely in this film: he moves like a marionette straight out of the 'Thunderbirds.' Lastly, a weak music score doesn't help, especially with the lovely lyrics. Stick with the radio version.

There is no way on earth that this film can ever compare visually with the lyrical lines written by Dylan Thomas.Although it is nice to hear Burton speak the words of his great idol, the inclusion of Elizabeth Taylor as Rosie Probert is a mistake.Full marks to Peter O'Toole for a fine effort as Captain Cat.