| A Man of No Importance | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Suri Krishnamma |
| Written by | Barry Devlin (screenplay) |
| Produced by | Jonathan Cavendish |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Ashley Rowe |
| Edited by | David Freeman |
| Music by | Julian Nott |
Release date |
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Running time | 99 minutes |
| Countries | United Kingdom Ireland |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $934,550 (USA) (sub-total) [1] |
A Man of No Importance is a 1994 comedy drama film written by Barry Devlin and directed by Suri Krishnamma, starring Albert Finney.
Alfred Byrne is a closeted homosexual bus conductor in 1963 Dublin. His sister tries to find him a suitable woman, but his real passion is putting on amateur theatre productions of Oscar Wilde plays, particularly Salome . The film deals with his struggle, temptation, and friendships, and how they are affected by his homosexuality. [2]
Alfred is a bus conductor who recites poetry and Oscar Wilde play lines to his regular bus riders. This year he hopes to put together the Wilde play Salome. Alfie lives with his sister Lily. He lines up the church hall only telling the priest that the play is about John the Baptist. A new beautiful young rider, Adele Rice, is his perfect Salome. Alfie lives above the Carson Butcher Shop and he slates up the butcher as King Herod. He wants his bus driver Robbie to be John the Baptist, but Robbie refuses, saying he is no actor. When the theatre group meets, Alfie tells them that they are not doing The Importance of Being Earnest this year but rather Salome. Butcher Carson finds the play offensive and misses rehearsals.
Byrne goes ahead with his amateur production with his friend Birdy as stage manager and Mrs. Crowe for costumes and assumes all is going well. Alfie's sister sets up a dinner date and a trip to the zoo with his leading lady, Adele. She tells Alfie she already had a boyfriend, John. Widow Birdie tells Alfie of the joys and benefits of marriage. An actor questions Alfie about his portrayal of Salome as a virgin princess. Butcher Carson goes to the church council and tries to stop the smut-filled play.
Alfie decides to give in to temptation and go to a gay bar. He approaches a young good looking man called Kitty and asks for a cuddle. They go outside and he is mugged and robbed. His closeted homosexuality is exposed. He suffers from fierce homophobia from his community, but he does get some support from actors in his play.
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 86% of the critics have given the film a positive review based on 14 reviews with an average rating of 6.96/10. [3]
A Man of No Importance , a musical based on this film.
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
The Importance of Being Earnest, a Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde, the last of his four drawing-room plays, following Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893) and An Ideal Husband (1895). First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy depicting the tangled affairs of two young men about town who lead double lives to evade unwanted social obligations, both assuming the name Ernest while wooing the two young women of their affections.
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas, also known as Bosie Douglas, was an English poet and journalist, and a lover of Oscar Wilde. At Oxford University he edited an undergraduate journal, The Spirit Lamp, that carried a homoerotic subtext, and met Wilde, starting a close but stormy relationship. Douglas's father, John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, abhorred it and set out to humiliate Wilde, publicly accusing him of homosexuality. Wilde sued him for criminal libel, but some intimate notes were found and Wilde was later imprisoned. On his release, he briefly lived with Douglas in Naples, but they had separated by the time Wilde died in 1900. Douglas married a poet, Olive Custance, in 1902 and had a son, Raymond.
Salomé is a 1922-23 American silent drama film directed by Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova, who also stars. It is an adaptation of the 1891 Oscar Wilde play of the same name. The play itself is a loose retelling of the biblical story of King Herod and his execution of John the Baptist at the request of Herod's stepdaughter, Salomé, whom he lusts after.
Robert Baldwin Ross was a British journalist, art critic and art dealer, best known for his relationship with Oscar Wilde, to whom he was a devoted friend and literary executor. A grandson of the Canadian reform leader Robert Baldwin, and son of John Ross and Augusta Elizabeth Baldwin, Ross was a pivotal figure on the London literary and artistic scene from the mid-1890s to his early death, and mentored several literary figures, including Siegfried Sassoon. His open homosexuality, in a period when male homosexual acts were illegal, brought him many hardships.
Salome, also known as Salome III, was a Jewish princess, the daughter of Herod II and princess Herodias. She was granddaughter of Herod the Great and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas. She is known from the New Testament, where she is not named, and from an account by Josephus. In the New Testament, the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas demands and receives the head of John the Baptist. According to Josephus, she was first married to her uncle Philip the Tetrarch, after whose death in AD 34 she married her cousin Aristobulus of Chalcis, thus becoming queen of Armenia Minor.
Salome is a one-act tragedy by Oscar Wilde. The original version of the play was first published in French in 1893; an English translation was published a year later. The play depicts the attempted seduction of Jokanaan by Salome, stepdaughter of Herod Antipas; her dance of the seven veils; the execution of Jokanaan at Salome's instigation; and her death on Herod's orders.
A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde is "a new and original play of modern life", in four acts, first given on 19 April 1893 at the Haymarket Theatre, London. Like Wilde's other society plays, it satirises English upper-class society. It has been revived from time to time since his death in 1900, but has been widely regarded as the least successful of his four drawing room plays.
Wilde is a 1997 British biographical romantic drama film directed by Brian Gilbert. The screenplay, written by Julian Mitchell, is based on Richard Ellmann's 1987 biography of Oscar Wilde. It stars Stephen Fry in the title role, with Jude Law, Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle, Gemma Jones, Judy Parfitt, Michael Sheen, Zoë Wanamaker, and Tom Wilkinson in supporting roles.
The Trials of Oscar Wilde, also known as The Man with the Green Carnation and The Green Carnation, is a 1960 British drama film based on the libel and subsequent criminal cases involving Oscar Wilde and the Marquess of Queensberry. It was written by Allen and Ken Hughes, directed by Hughes, and co-produced by Irving Allen, Albert R. Broccoli and Harold Huth. The screenplay was by Ken Hughes and Montgomery Hyde, based on an unperformed play The Stringed Lute by John Furnell. The film was made by Warwick Films and released by Eros Films.
Oscar Wilde is a 1960 biographical film about Oscar Wilde, made by Vantage Films and released by 20th Century Fox. The film was directed by Gregory Ratoff and produced by William Kirby, from a screenplay by Jo Eisinger, based on the play Oscar Wilde by Leslie Stokes and Sewell Stokes. The film starred Robert Morley, Ralph Richardson, Phyllis Calvert and Alexander Knox.
Constance Mary Wilde was an Irish writer. She was the wife of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde and the mother of their two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan.
Salome's Last Dance is a 1988 British film written and directed by Ken Russell. Although most of the action is a verbatim performance of Oscar Wilde's 1891 play Salome, which is itself based on a story from the New Testament, there is also a framing narrative that was written by Russell.
A Man of No Importance is a musical with music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and a book by Terrence McNally, based on the 1994 Albert Finney film, A Man of No Importance. It tells the story of an amateur theatre group in Dublin and their leader, who is determined to stage a version of Salome at his church, despite the objections of church authorities.
This is a bibliography of works by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), a late-Victorian Irish writer. Chiefly remembered today as a playwright, especially for The Importance of Being Earnest, and as the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray; Wilde's oeuvre includes criticism, poetry, children's fiction, and a large selection of reviews, lectures and journalism. His private correspondence has also been published.
Oscar Wilde's life and death have generated numerous biographies.
La Sainte Courtisane is an unfinished play by Oscar Wilde written in 1894. The original draft was left in a taxi cab by the author, and was never completed. It was first published in 1908 by Wilde's literary executor, Robert Ross. It has never been performed, and has been little studied.
Judith and the Head of Holofernes is an oil painting by Gustav Klimt, painted in 1901. It depicts the biblical figure Judith holding the head of Holofernes after beheading him. The beheading and its aftermath have been commonly portrayed in art since the Renaissance, and Klimt himself would paint a second work depicting the subject in 1909.
The Happy Prince is a 2018 biographical drama film about Oscar Wilde, written and directed by Rupert Everett in his directorial debut. The film stars Everett, Colin Firth, Colin Morgan, Emily Watson, Edwin Thomas and Tom Wilkinson. It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and was shown at the 2018 BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival. At the 9th Magritte Awards, it received a nomination in the category of Best Foreign Film.
Salome by Oscar Wilde, a play written in 1891 and first produced in 1896, has been analysed by numerous literary critics, and has prompted numerous derivatives. The play depicts the events leading to the execution of Iokanaan at the instigation of Salome, step-daughter of Herod Antipas, and her death on Herod's orders.