Marie Kean Movies

Judith Hearne (Maggie Smith) is a middle-aged "maiden lady" piano teacher living in 1950s Dublin. Timid and self-deprecating, Judith permits herself to yearn over her new boarding-house neighbor, hotel entrepreneur Bob Hoskins. Hoskins thinks that Judith has enough money to bankroll his latest scheme, so he decides to return her affections. Judith, blind to Hoskin's duplicity, convinces herself that she's finally found true love. The shattering of her illusions drives Judith to drink--and, unexpectedly, to a more fulfilling new life. Based on the novel by Brian Moore, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is typical of the "muted emotion" ouevre of director Jack Clayton. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Writer/director Neil Jordan's debut feature is a tense thriller played out amid the violence in Northern Ireland. Stephen Rea stars as Danny, a saxophone player in a traveling band who witnesses the brutal murders of the manager of the band (who is involved in some extortion payoffs) and a deaf and dumb girl, who has seen the killing of the manager. After observing these cold-blooded executions, Danny becomes obsessed with hunting down the killers. His obsession develops into a murderous rage so intense that he ends up becoming as heartless a killer as the people he is trying to find. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

With ornate imagery reminiscent of paintings from the story's 18th century period, Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel depicts the rise and fall of a sensitive rogue in the British aristocracy. Young Irishman Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal) leaves home to seek his fortune after apparently killing an English officer in a duel. Through a series of mishaps and accidents, Barry winds up fighting with the Prussian army in the Seven Years' War under the command of Capt. Potzdorf (Hardy Kruger); at war's end, Potzdorf enlists Barry to spy on a shady Chevalier (Patrick Magee). Instead, Barry joins up with the Irish Chevalier to flee Prussia and live as gamblers among Europe's elite. Wishing to climb even higher, Barry soon meets the beautiful Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson), marrying her for her fortune after her older titled husband dies. Her son Lord Bullingdon (Leon Vitali), however, despises the upstart Barry, and, regardless of how his mother may feel, sees to it that the re-named Barry Lyndon will never be able to stake his claim to the entrenched aristocracy. Coming after Kubrick's esteemed hits 2001 (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon opened with high expectations and met with decidedly mixed responses to its restrained tone. Even with Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director (and wins for Cinematography, Art Direction, Costumes, and Adapted Score), Barry Lyndon was a box office failure, as mid-'70s audiences increasingly turned away from such narrative challenges as its epic length and muffled emotions. Since then, Barry Lyndon has gained in stature, taking its place among the formidable artistic achievements of Kubrick's career. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Mae West was never permitted to make a film version of her bawdy historical romp Catherine Was Great, yet this British adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Great Catherine made it to the screen. Where is the justice in this? Anyway, Jeanne Moreau braves it through the nearly unplayable role of Catherine, mother of All the Russias, while Peter O'Toole and Zero Mostel struggle manfully to breathe life into the proceedings. The plot has something to do with Prince Patiomkin's efforts to splice Catherine with Captain Edstaston, thus assuring that the queen's reign will be a happy one. The Captain would rather dally with Claire (Angela Scoular) and spends the rest of the running time escaping the queen's wrath. Throughout Great Catherine, Shavian wit is given short shrift in favor of 2-reeler slapstick. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It can't have been box-office considerations that motivated the title-change of the British I Was Happy Here to the American-release title Time Lost and Time Remembered. Director Desmond Davis both directed and wrote this nostalgic story of a London housewife (Sarah Miles), who leaves her husband to take a sentimental journey to her Irish home town. As she strolls around her old stamping grounds, Miles occasionally confides her mixed emotions (disillusionment among them) to the audience. To represent the "one foot in the then, one in the now" ambience of the story, director Davies frequently stages his scenes in time-displacement fashion, with characters in the present stepping directly into the past. Can this delicately handled film be a product of the same Desmond Davis who so badly botched the slapstick setpieces of Smashing Time? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rita Tushingham was propelled into stardom with The Girl with Green Eyes. She plays a gawky young rural Irish girl who takes a room with a wise-cracking Dublin lass (Lynn Redgrave). Enter a middle-aged writer (Peter Finch), who makes a beeline for the shy, lonely Tushingham--completely ignoring her more worldly roommate. Girl with Green Eyes was liberally based upon Edna O'Brien's novella The Lonely Girl. With this one film, Rita Tushingham not only became bankable, but also what is known as a "critic's darling", meaning that she could do no wrong in the eyes of certain male reviewers. The bloom was off the rose fairly quickly, and soon Ms. Tushingham found herself contractually committed to one second-string project after another, including an ill-advised reteaming with actress Lynn Redgrave and director Desmond Davis in the resistible Smashing Time (67). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Brendan Behan, the quixotic, eternally sloshed Irish poet/playwright, peppered his play The Quare Fellow with plenty of "gallows humor." The film version dispenses with most the play's morbid jests, leaving us with a grim, straightforward account of a Dublin death-row prison guard (Patrick McGoohan) and his growing empathy with two condemned prisoners. One could understand the removal of the play's comic elements had the film been made in timorous Hollywood. But since Quare Fellow was financed and produced in Ireland, it seems a inappropriately glum tribute to one of the country's boldest and most brilliant talents. Quare Fellow was directed by American "B" specialist Arthur Dreifuss, who also adapted Behan's play for the screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rooney (John Gregson) is a handsome but unambitious Irish sanitation worker. Rooney's landladies would love to see him married to one of their daughters, or nieces, or whatever, but Rooney ain't buyin'. Barry Fitzgerald plays Rooney's elderly bedridden neighbor, whom the young man befriends, turns to for advice, and tries to shield from the old man's bickering relatives. Stronger on characterization than plot, Rooney was based on a popular novel by Catherine Cookson. The film is at its best when the camera roams around the misty streets of Dublin, and at its worst when it pauses for sentiment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide