Broth of a Boy | |
---|---|
Directed by | George Pollock |
Written by | Blanaid Irvine Patrick Kirwan |
Based on | play The Big Birthday by Hugh Leonard [1] |
Produced by | Emmet Dalton Alec C. Snowden |
Starring | Barry Fitzgerald June Thorburn Eddie Golden Godfrey Quigley |
Cinematography | Walter J. Harvey |
Edited by | Henry Richardson |
Music by | Stanley Black |
Production company | Emmett Dalton Productions |
Distributed by | British Lion Film Corporation (UK) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 77 minutes |
Country | Ireland |
Language | English |
Broth of a Boy is a 1959 Irish comedy film directed by George Pollock and starring Barry Fitzgerald, Harry Brogan and June Thorburn. [2] It is an adaptation of the 1956 play The Big Birthday by Hugh Leonard.
The film involves the efforts of a British television producer to create a documentary about the birthday of an Irish supercentenarian, but the cantankerous old man is unwilling to cooperate with him.
Whilst holidaying in Ireland, British TV producer Randall (Tony Wright) comes across a village celebrating the birthday of the oldest man in the world, Patrick Farrell (Barry Fitzgerald). Thinking Farrell's 110th birthday would make an ideal subject for a BBC documentary, Randall seeks to persuade him to agree to being filmed. However, Farrell proves difficult, is an old codger, cantankerous and disreputable, and will cooperate only if he can exploit the situation for his own ends.
The New York Times wrote, "Although the idea bristles with lively possibilities and Mr. Fitzgerald and the Abbey Theatre players who surround him do as much as they can with it, "Broth of a Boy" only generates mild chuckles and a guffaw or two"; [3] and TV Guide bemoaned the "Bad script, acting, and direction"; [4] whereas Allmovie applauded "a pleasant, easygoing satire of exploitive journalism--a target that is as viable today as it was in 1959"; [5] and Leonard Maltin also found the film "quietly effective." [6]
The Quiet Man is a 1952 American romantic comedy-drama film directed and produced by John Ford, and starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen, Barry Fitzgerald, and Ward Bond. The screenplay by Frank S. Nugent was based on a 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story of the same name by Irish author Maurice Walsh, later published as part of a collection titled The Green Rushes. The film features Winton Hoch's lush photography of the Irish countryside and a long, climactic, semi-comic fist fight.
William Joseph Shields, known professionally as Barry Fitzgerald, was an Irish stage, film and television actor. In a career spanning almost forty years, he appeared in such notable films as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Long Voyage Home (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Sea Wolf (1941), Going My Way (1944), None but the Lonely Heart (1944) and The Quiet Man (1952). For Going My Way (1944), he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and was simultaneously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was the older brother of Irish actor Arthur Shields. In 2020, he was listed at number 11 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
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Hugh Leonard was an Irish dramatist, television writer, and essayist. In a career that spanned 50 years, Leonard wrote nearly 30 full-length plays, 10 one-act plays, three volumes of essay, two autobiographies, three novels, numerous screenplays and teleplays, and a regular newspaper column.
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Geraldine Mary Fitzgerald was an Irish stage, film, and television actress. She was an Academy Award and Tony Award nominee, and an Emmy Award winner. She was a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame and, in 2020, was listed at number 30 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Juno and the Paycock is a play by Seán O'Casey. Highly regarded and often performed in Ireland, it was first staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924. It is set in the working-class tenements of Dublin in the early 1920s, during the Irish Civil War period. The word "paycock" is the Irish pronunciation of "peacock", which is what Juno accuses her husband of being.
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The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack, which aired from 1968 to 1971 on NBC, totaling 76 episodes of 90 minutes each. The show was a wheel series, setting the stage for The Bold Ones and the NBC Mystery Movie in the 1970s. The program had the largest budget of any television series at that time.
The Pickwick Papers is a 1952 British historical comedy drama film written and directed by Noel Langley and starring James Hayter, James Donald, Nigel Patrick and Joyce Grenfell. It is based on the Charles Dickens’s 1837 novel of the same name. It was made by Renown Pictures who had successfully released another Dickens adaptation Scrooge the previous year.
The 6th Irish Film & Television Awards took place on 14 February 2009 at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin, and was hosted by Ryan Tubridy. It honoured Irish film and television released in 2008.
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Paul Anthony "Tony" Wright was an English film actor. The son of actor Hugh E. Wright, he was a Rank Organisation contract player for some years.
Rooney is a 1958 British comedy film directed by George Pollock and starring John Gregson, Muriel Pavlow and Barry Fitzgerald. It was based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Catherine Cookson.
Harry Brogan was an Irish actor often in comic roles. He was part of the Abbey Theatre from 1939 - 1976.
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