Plot
The film is about the poet Laurie Lee's childhood and youth, between the ages of four and twenty-one, growing up in the Cotswold village of Slad, Gloucestershire, in the years following the First World War. It follows the ending of the traditional English village way of life, with the coming of motor cars and electricity, the death of the local squire, and the influence of the church ebbing away. As part of that breaking-down process, Lee's father abandons his family, leaving his wife to bring up eight children. One theme is Lee's awakening sexuality, as he grows older, and the title refers to his first flirtation, with a village girl called Rosie.
The main action of the film ends before Lee sets off on his early travels, which are dealt with in As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning .
Videohound says of the film "Laurie's childhood consists of school, church, village festivals, eccentric relations and neighbors, and the usual childhood tribulations". [2]
Production
John Mortimer and Laurie Lee had been friends from the 1950s on. [3] Soon after Lee's death in 1997, Mortimer spoke at a memorial service for Lee and then turned his friend's autobiographical book Cider with Rosie into a screenplay, persuading Carlton Television to produce it. [4] Charles Beeson was appointed as Director. [5]
Lee's home village of Slad was found to have changed too much since the 1920s to be used as the main film location, with conservatories added to cottages and other modern alterations. [6] In its place another village, Sapperton, near Cirencester, was used for filming most of the outdoor scenes, with the main street gravelled to overcome the out-of-character 1990s road surface. Several other Cotswold villages and the town of Stroud were also used as locations, [6] as was Clevedon in Somerset, [7] while Lee's final home in Slad, Rose Cottage, became the film location for the Slad village pub. [4]
Juliet Stevenson was cast to play the pivotal character of Lee's mother, Annie, and she read the late Mrs Lee's letters in preparation for the role. [4] Laurie Lee's own voice, recorded in 1988, was used for the narration, which gave the film extra impact, [4] and the scriptwriter's daughter Emily Mortimer was cast as the mad Miss Flynn. [3]
Casting director Pippa Hall gave a small boy, William Moseley, a walk-on part in the film, and seven years later she remembered him and cast him as Peter Pevensie in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005). [8]
Reception
Country Life said in its review
This is not the first time that Lee's 1959 masterpiece, Cider With Rosie, has been adapted... Hugh Whitemore's 1971 script for the BBC was rendered into a beguiling, sunny fantasy under Claude Whatham's softly focused direction. The 1998 film, scheduled for December 27, takes a more realistic view of Cotswold rural life between 1918 and 1935. Indeed it is the most definitive screen version we are ever likely to get. John Mortimer's screenplay is faithfully crafted. The book is autobiography dressed and moulded through a poet's flighty imagination and lyrical prose, Charles Beeson's direction allows for this... There is a lot of fun and laughter in the Lee household, where 'our mother' is left to bring up eight children after her husband deserts, and there is a rich mixture of village eccentrics." [9]
Valerie Grove, John Mortimer's biographer, later wrote of Emily Mortimer as "ethereally haunting as mad Miss Flynn, who drowns in the village pond." [3]
Sir John Clifford Mortimer was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author. He is best known for novels about a barrister named Horace Rumpole.
Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021.
Laurence Edward Alan Lee, was an English poet, novelist and screenwriter, who was brought up in the small village of Slad in Gloucestershire.
Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer is a British actress. She began acting in stage productions and has since appeared in several film and television roles. In 2003, she won an Independent Spirit Award for her performance in Lovely and Amazing. She is also known for playing Mackenzie McHale in the HBO series The Newsroom (2013-2015). She created and wrote the series Doll & Em (2014–2015) and wrote and directed the miniseries The Pursuit of Love (2021).
Emma Smith was an English novelist, who also wrote for children and published two volumes of autobiography. She gave encouragement to Laurie Lee while he was writing his bestselling memoir of his childhood, Cider with Rosie.
William Peter Moseley is an English actor. He is known for playing Peter Pevensie in the film series The Chronicles of Narnia (2005–2010), which won him a Kids' Choice Award, in addition to nominations for a Saturn Award and a Young Artist Award. He also played Prince Liam in the E! series The Royals (2015–2018).
Rosemary Anne Leach was a British stage, television and film actress. She won the 1982 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a New Play for 84, Charing Cross Road and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her roles in the films That'll Be the Day (1973) and A Room with a View (1985).
Slad is a village in Gloucestershire, England, in the Slad Valley about 2 miles (3 km) from Stroud on the B4070 road from Stroud to Birdlip.
Cider with Rosie is a 1959 book by Laurie Lee. It is the first book of a trilogy that continues with As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) and A Moment of War (1991). It has sold over six million copies worldwide.
Amanda Boxer is an English theatre, television, and film actress. She is perhaps best known for her role in the film Saving Private Ryan (1998).
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) is a memoir by Laurie Lee, a British poet. It is a sequel to Cider with Rosie which detailed his early life in Gloucestershire after the First World War. In this sequel Lee leaves the security of his Cotswold village of Slad in Gloucestershire to start a new life, at the same time embarking on an epic journey on foot.
Kidnapped is a 1960 American adventure drama film. It is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic 1886 novel Kidnapped. It stars Peter Finch and James MacArthur, and was Disney's second production based on a novel by Stevenson, the first being Treasure Island. It also marked Peter O'Toole's feature-film debut.
Sapperton is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire in England, about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) west of Cirencester. It is most famous for Sapperton Canal Tunnel, and its connection with the Cotswold Arts and Crafts Movement in the early 20th century. It had a population of 424, which had reduced to 412 at the 2011 census.
Wilfred John Raymond Lee was a British film director, screenwriter, editor, and producer, who directed a number of postwar films on location in Asia and Australia for The Rank Organisation.
Claude Whatham was an English film and TV director mainly known for his work on dramas.
Valerie Grove is a British journalist and author, who for many years worked as a feature writer, interviewer and columnist for The Times newspaper.
Ruby Leilani N. Ashbourne Serkis is an English actress.
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