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Spuds, -Camera - ACTION - Irish Movies , Locations and Skeet.

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  • 28-01-2011 3:16pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭


    Judgement Day came up with the idea for this thread as an offshoot from the Green & the Greasepaint thread.

    The idea being not to discuss the merits of movies but their locations and movies as an event. The first cinema depictions were probably Royal Visits to Dublin.

    I know very little about Irish Cinema or Movies even where to look.

    I don't think we should be snobby about the entertainment industry or homespun events and if they are a bit naff by modern standards well so what -they document a period and were often done on the cheap.

    So the kick of the festivities here is a clip from the first movie ever made in Ireland " The Lad from the Auld Country" 1910

    A boy from Ireland comes to America and makes good, but he doesn't forget the poverty he left behind. He returns to rescue his sweetheart just as her family is about to be evicted from their land.



    Sidney Olcott who made the movie was a prodigious movie maker since 1907

    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0646058/

    Sidney was Canadian of Irish Ancestry and figured that there was a ready made audience for Irish Movies in the USA .

    Here is his story.

    Sidney Olcott
    Sidney Olcott (September 20, 1873 - December 16, 1949) was a Canadian producer, director, actor and writer. Born John Sidney Alcott in Toronto, Ontario, he became one of the first great directors of the motion picture business. With a desire to be an actor, a young Sidney Olcott went to New York City where he worked in the theater until 1904 when he performed as a film actor with the Biograph Studios. Within a short time he was directing films and became a general manager at Biograph.
    In 1907, Frank Marion, Samuel Long, and George Klein, formed a new motion picture company called the Kalem Company and were able to lure the increasingly successful Sidney Olcott away from Biograph. He was offered the sum of ten dollars per picture and under the terms of his contract, Olcott was required to direct a minimum of one, one-reel picture of about a thousand feet every week. After making a number of very successful films for the Kalem studio, including "Ben-Hur" with its dramatic chariot race scene, Olcott became the company's president and was rewarded with one share of its stock.
    In 1910 Sidney Olcott demonstrated his creative thinking when he made Kalem Studios the first ever to travel outside the United States to film on location. Of Irish ancestry, and knowing that in America there was a huge built-in Irish audience, Olcott went to Ireland where he made a film called "The Lad from Old Ireland." He would go on to make more films there and later on only the outbreak of World War I, prevented him from following through with his plans to build a permanent studio in Beaufort, Ireland.
    The Irish films led to him taking a crew to Palestine in 1912 to make the first five-reel film ever, titled "From the Manger To the Cross," the life story of Jesus Christ. The film concept was at first the subject of much skepticism but when it appeared on screen, it was lauded by the public and the critics. Costing $35,000 to produce, "From the Manger to the Cross" earned the Kalem Company profits of almost $1 million, a staggering amount in 1912. The motion picture industry acclaimed him as it greatest director and the film influenced the direction many great filmmakers would take such as D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. "From the Manger to the Cross" is still shown today to film societies and students studying early film making techniques. In 1998 the film was selected for the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress.
    Despite making the studio owners very rich men, they refused to increase his salary beyond the $150 a week he was then earning. From the enormous profits made for his employers, Olcott's dividend on the one share they had given him amounted to $350. As a result, Sidney Olcott resigned and took some time off, making only an occasional film until 1915 when he was encouraged by his Canadian friend Mary Pickford to join her at Famous Players (later Paramount Studios). The Kalem Company never recovered from the mistake of losing Olcott and a few years after his departure, the operation was acquired by Vitagraph Studios in 1916.
    Like the rest of the film industry, Sidney Olcott moved to Hollywood, California, where he directed many more successful and acclaimed motion pictures with the leading stars of the day. He served as President of the Motion Picture Directors Association and married actress Valentine Grant, the star of his 1916 film, "The Innocent Lie."

    The Movie was shot in Beaufort Co Kerry and Olcott had plans to build a film stidio there except WWI interfered

    In point of fact, Irish film was never the sole province of Irish filmmakers. Sidney Olcott’s The Lad from Old Ireland (1910) made by the U.S. based Kalem Company, with a predominantly American cast and a Canadian director, was one of the first feature length motion pictures shot in Ireland. Over the next four years, Olcott directed more than a dozen fiction and documentary films in here, and, had not the First World War disrupted his plans, he would have established a studio near Killarney in Beaufort, County Kerry. At the same time, indigenous filmmakers had begun to demonstrate their own abilities in a convincing fashion with films like Rory O’Moore, In the Days of St. Patrick, and Willy Reilly and his Colleen Bawn. In the twenties and thirties when native filmmakers recorded impressions of contemporary events in Irish Destiny (1926), The Dawn (1935), and Guests of the Nation (1935), foreign directors proved equally adept at chronicling the Troubles, offering films like Juno and the Paycock (1930), The Informer (1935), and The Plow and the Stars (1936)

    http://www.corkfilmfest.org/news-and-announcements/green-shoots-the-direction-of-irish-cinema

    Beaufort is in the heart of Co Kerry in the middle of McGillicuddy territory

    http://www.beaufort-parish.com/asp/section.asp?s=1


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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Here is a lovely and enthusiastic introduction to movie making in Ireland - the first Irish made/directed feature film as "The Dawn" in 1936 by a chap called Cooper.

    http://www.currach.ie/shop/images/book_samples/1856079147.pdf

    The first movies shown in Dublin were in 1896 in the Star of Erin Music Hall Dame Street which for a time converted to a cinema. Its the Olympia to you and me.

    Thank god for You Tube - we will be able to watch some of them and their locations :)

    Edit : An early Irish Film-maker was a brother of Thomas MacDonagh


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,871 ✭✭✭Corsendonk


    Rush Co Dublin for many years has been used as a loction for movies. Tv series such as the Irish RM and lately the Inspector George Gently have also made use of the period buildings in the area. The first recorded movie to be filmed in the area was the "In the Days of Saint Patrick" in 1917.


    From the Story of Irish Film, Currach
    In 1917 the General Film Company of Ireland headed by Norman Whitten,
    with J.W. Mackey in charge of production and J. Gordon Lewis as cameraman,
    produced In the Days of Saint Patrick. The film directed by Whitten starred a well
    known Queen’s Theatre actor, Ira Allan, in the title role. Alice Cardinall played
    Patrick’s mother, George Griffin was King Laoghaire, Maud Hume the Queen
    and T. O’Carroll Reynolds played Niall of the Nine Hostages. One of the slaves
    was a black boxer named Cyclone Billy Warren, a notable character around
    Dublin for a long time. The main location was Rush, Co Dublin and the
    ambitious production featured pirate galleys and chariot races. The film took a
    year of patiently watching the weather and seasons to capture the perfect
    conditions for filming. The results more than justified the difficult conditions and
    the critics reviewed it warmly. In the Days of Saint Patrick was well received
    throughout Ireland and England by trade and public alike.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131439/fullcredits#cast

    Other selected movies:

    Kenure House before it was demolished played host to:

    Ten Little Indians 1965- Kenure House doubled as the Austrian castle on top of a mountain only reachable by cable car.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061075/

    Trailer but not original soundtrack
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA8PFd_st5I

    Jules Verne Rocket to the Moon also know as Those Fantastic Flying Fools 1967
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062363/

    Intro credits
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPFgiGIM1jk

    The Face of Fu Manchu 1965
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059162/
    Trailer
    http://www.archive.org/details/DonSh...vieTrailer1965

    Another film that did a major part of filming in Rush was Some Mothers Son in 1996, sure someone has a photo of the RUC station down at the Square.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117690/


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    The adaptation of Henry Melvilles 1850 great American Romantic Novel "Moby DicK"/"The Whale" had its harbour scenes filmed in Youghal Co Cork in 1954 .

    The Pequod was actually a boat built in the UK named the Moby Dick .









    It was in 1954 that John Huston chose Youghal for the location of New Bedford for the movie “Moby Dick”. The making of this movie brought such stars as Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart and Leo Genn to Youghal. During the months and weeks of building and filming, Youghal was a hive of activity and excitement with people visiting from all over Ireland and England. But it was in Paddy Linehan’s pub that John Huston would sit in the morning and plan out the days shooting schedule. It was then in tribute to this unique time in the history of Youghal that Paddy renamed his pub, MOBY DICK, the licensed premises in the town still bears the name of the movie.
    1151543-During_the_making_of_Moby_Dick-Youghal.jpgYoughal 1954 - During the making of the film Moby Dick


    http://www.youghalonline.com/2010/08/14/moby-dick-youghal-short-film-clip/

    This second clip here from you tube with the 10 0r 11 minites and has a few pages of comments on the locations and some of the locals who acted as extra's



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtTHP6sa0UY

    youghallarge3.jpg

    As it appears today. In the centre there is the Clock Gate - which was used as the Town gallows until the 19th Century and was also the gate thru which Cromwell entered the walled town. After docking at the same quay as did Perkin Warbeck pretender to the English Throne in 1491.





  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    It really is a small world. The author of ‘The Story of Irish Film’ also grew up in Bray and frequented the same cinemas as I did, although “The Roxy” had become “The Panorama” by the time I was going to it. I lived just round the corner from the latter and I remember going to see “The Jungle Book” every day for a full week when it came out. The old Turkish Baths in Bray also served as a cinema for a while and was known locally as the ‘flea pit’ – for obvious reasons. Thanks for the details about the book it looks well worth tracking down a copy.

    Great_train_robbery.jpg
    'Never have so few taken so much from so many' - the films motto has a certain resonance today!
    For some reason the first Irish film that I can relate to is “The First Great Train Robbery” (1979) which starred Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Ann Down. It was largely shot in Ireland with various Irish stations doubling up for their English counterparts – Heuston (London Bridge), Moate (Ashford) and Cork (Folkestone) stations were all pressed into service.

    spa_train_robbery_080910_ssh.jpg
    Heuston Station as you never saw it with Sean Connery and Lesley-Ann Down.

    It’s a rip roaring yarn concerning the theft of a shipment of gold bound for the British army in the Crimea in 1855 and features a lot of stunt work on the roof of the moving train – much of it carried out by Sean Connery himself rather than a stuntman! The filming of the moving train scenes, away from the termini, was carried out on the now mothballed line between Mullingar and Athlone where there was little in the way of ordinary rail traffic to get in the way. The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland provided steam locomotive No.184 for the movie and CIE provided the underframes on which 1850s replica carriages were constructed. The remains of these ‘carriages’ lingered on at Bray station for quite a while after the movie was completed and earned, unfairly, more bad PR for CIE as many of the travelling public thought it disgraceful that such historic vehicles should be dumped in a siding. They were of course only props and constructed from plywood and built on wagon underframes but they did look the part.

    245032.jpg
    Sean Connery clings on for dear life as the train rattles along the Mullingar/Athlone line at 35mph - although the film crew later claimed it was closer to 55mph!
    A full account of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s involvement in the film making is available here: http://www.steamtrainsireland.com/downloads/FFT/FFT_23.pdf


    Hard to believe that CIE continued to operate its full mainline service just to the left of the platform used in this scene. One of the best recreations of a Victorian station scene that I've ever seen.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Great_Train_Robbery


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,974 ✭✭✭✭ejmaztec


    The Blue Max

    WW1 aerial dogfights over the Western Front (or Ireland as it was known before and after filming).

    An old aunt of mine who was living in Trim when this film was being shot, was telling me that George Peppard paid the town a visit, probably on a genealogy tour. He apparently found a relative, who could have been his doppelganger.



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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    The Lad from Auld Ireland Part II





  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,871 ✭✭✭Corsendonk


    Henry V (1944)

    Filmed in Enniskerry and the Curragh.



    Wikipedia
    The original setting was inaccessible, as it was located in German-occupied France at the time, so the film was shot in Enniskerry, Co.Wicklow, Ireland.

    Photographed in three-strip Technicolor, the picture was hailed by critics for its ebulliently colourful sets and costumes, as well as for Olivier's masterful direction and acting. Pauline Kael called the movie "a triumph of color, music, spectacle and soaring heroic poetry".[1] James Agee reported, in Time magazine's April 8, 1946 issue, that a remarkable 75 percent of the color footage shot was used in the final release. Even by British standards, this was an exceptionally high figure. For a first-time director it was unheard of.

    Olivier agreed not to appear in a film for 18 months to encourage this one to attract as large an audience as possible. In return, he was paid £15,000, tax-free (about £460,000 in today's money


    Extracts of the Battle Scenes filmed


    Wikipedia
    Watime Context of Movie
    Winston Churchill instructed Olivier to fashion the film as morale-boosting propaganda for British troops fighting World War II. The making and release of the film coincided with the Allied invasion of Normandy and push into France. The opening sequence dedicates the movie to Britain's forces, the "spirit of whose ancestors" the caption says the film attempts to capture.

    Olivier intentionally left out some of Henry's harsher traits as Shakespeare wrote them - such as his threat to unleash his troops to rape and pillage Harfleur and his remorseless hanging of three traitors, as well as of one of his good friends, Bardolph. The melancholy reference at the end of the play to how England under Henry VI eventually lost France is also omitted.

    Esmond Knight, who plays the patriotic Welsh soldier Fluellen was a wounded veteran of the war. He had been badly injured in 1941 while on active service on board HMS Prince of Wales when she was attacked by the Bismarck, and remained totally blind for two years. He had only just regained some sight in his right eye.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    Anyone ever hear of a Movie made in Cobh about the Lusitania, between 1966 and 1970, the brother swears he was in it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Anyone ever hear of a Movie made in Cobh about the Lusitania, between 1966 and 1970, the brother swears he was in it.

    I cant find a movie but found a reference to a Granada TV Movie here
    PAGE LAST UPDATED 04/11/99 17:33


    [FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times]COBH LIBRARY BUILDING[/FONT]

    [FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times] the Cobh Library which boasts a huge selection of books for both pleasure reading and research.[/FONT][FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times]There is also a photographic exhibition of the making of the Granada Movie about the Lusitania which was shot in Cobh a number of years ago[/FONT]

    http://homepage.eircom.net/~greatisle/local1.htm


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    CDfm - there's a train in that extract (The Lad from Auld Ireland Part II) - any idea where it is? I'm a reformed train spotter but I can't place the location or the identity of the locomotive. I feel sure that it's a Dublin, Wicklow & Wexford Railway - possibly Rosslare Strand and the loco name looks like a DWWR one but can't read it. I might link this thread to the C&T Forum. Enjoying the thread so far? I am. :)


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    CDfm - there's a train in that extract (The Lad from Auld Ireland Part II) - any idea where it is? I'm a reformed train spotter but I can't place the location or the identity of the locomotive. I feel sure that it's a Dublin, Wicklow & Wexford Railway - possibly Rosslare Strand and the loco name looks like a DWWR one but can't read it. I might link this thread to the C&T Forum. Enjoying the thread so far? I am. :)

    I have absolutely no idea and Part II of the movie just showed up.
    Do go and link it to wherever. I wonder if the TV & Documentary people would have contributions to make here. High-brow -we ain't :D

    There were lots of documentaries made because there was a market for them in the USA .


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    quackser-fortune-has-cousin-in-bronx-movie-poster-1020386496.jpg

    Probably the first Irish film that I can remember seeing was “Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx” (1970) starring Gene Wilder, Eileen Colgan, Margot Kidder (in her first leading role), Seamus Forde and the ubiquitous (and very young) David Kelly.

    In Dublin, a working class family has been unsuccessful in convincing their son to get a real job: the son prefers his job of scooping up horse's dung and selling it for flower gardens. An American exchange student almost runs him over and then gets to know him. The dung man has ignored warnings from his family and suddenly the horses have been banned from Dublin. His new love is leaving for America and he must find a way to cope with the new reality….



    Enough said but given that I hadn't seen the film in forty years it left an impression – but I can’t remember whether it was a good or bad one. Having viewed the few clips available on You Tube tonight I was really taken by the scenes of Dublin and the surrounding countryside in a gentler era long before the Celtic Tiger strode across the land. Hardly any traffic, old CIE RA buses (the ones with the handrail and platform at back), real pubs with not a caffè latte in sight. Gene Wilder’s Irish accent is terrible. The movie is available on DVD from Amazon/eBay etc. and I suspect I will be ordering a copy shortly. :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Here is a link to a Database with 39,500 "titles" in Ireland accross TV & Film

    http://www.tcd.ie/irishfilm/search.php

    Irish Film & Television Index

    The Irish Film & Television Index is a constituent element of the Irish Film & TV Research Online website. Like the other areas of this site, the project is based in the School of Drama, Film and Music, Trinity College Dublin.

    The Irish Film & Television Index is documenting all Irish-made cinema and major television productions as well as Irish-themed audio-visual representations produced outside of Ireland. The database, which has drawn on the archival and paper records from many of the world's leading film archives and specialist libraries, including ones in Ireland, Britain, the USA, and Australia, has almost 40,000 titles.

    Under the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences' Major Grant Scheme, 2003-05, an award was made to update Kevin Rockett's The Irish Filmography (1996) and to document all major non-fiction films, including newsreels, and animation, made for cinema and television. Additional to IRCHSS and Trinity College Dublin support, the project has received the sponsorship of the Higher Education Authority's North South Programme for Collaborative Research, 2003-06, and Bord Scannan na hEireann/Irish Film Board, 2006.The Irish Film Institute's archive and library have also played an important role in the realisation of this project.

    Researchers are able, almost instantly, to find, for example, an Irish-theme film; its cast list or production personnel; read a synopsis of its content; establish what has been written about it; compile, through a keyword search, a list of complementary titles; and then find out where a copy of the film may be found. Furthermore, the Irish Film & Television Biographies and Irish Film & Television Bibliography databases can add further depth to such searches.

    Supervising editor: Professor Kevin Rockett, Trinity College

    http://www.tcd.ie/irishfilm/search.php

    If there is something you find and is on you tube or another video site -I would love to see a link.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Lest we forget - in the early days RTE were no slouches in TV production and Wanderly Wagon predated the Muppet Show with Irelands legendary puppeteer Eugene Lambert as O'Brien



    Its a pity the series wasn't preserved and rerun.
    The Wanderly Wagon Story
    Eugene Lambert and his family are famous puppeteers based in Monkstown,Co. Dublin. The Lambert family were making children's puppet programmes for RTÉ from the early days - and so Eugene Lambert was a natural choice for RTÉ when they were planning a new children's TV series in 1968. The original idea was for a children's programme that would travel the country, so some in RTÉ management thought that a set of bicycles would be a good idea!
    Thankfully someone in RTÉ came up with the idea of a magical wagon so the bicycle idea was never used. If the original concept was a show travelling around the country, then by 1970 (when I started watching Wanderly Wagon) this idea had vanished and instead the three travellers journeyed through a fantasy world rescuing princesses and generally doing good - almost like a non frightening version of Dr. Who!
    Money was always scarce for Wanderly Wagon. Maureen Simpson, who is WW writer Carolyn Swift's daughter tells me this:
    I am not sure exactly when RTÉ wiped the tapes - mostly I think they did it fairly shortly after transmission for "economic reasons". I know that programmes were made on the tightest budget - everything, down the last penny, had to be questioned- things like "electronic edits" and "o/b filming" (0/b = outside filming i.e. not recorded in studio), were major triumphs when the money people agreed! I really remember Mum getting excited when they agreed to these tiny bits of modern technology - things we take for granted now.
    Wanderly Wagon made extensive use of Chroma Key technology during its run. Sets could then be drawn and the actors superimposed onto the drawing.
    Bill Goulding left the show in 1974, and to this day remains a respected actor and voice over artist. The handle of Rory still sticks though. Certainly to my generation he will always be Rory even though it's been over 25 years since he wore that fringed jacket!
    During the summer months when it seemed the whole of RTÉ shut down, Eugene Lambert and his family would tour the country with his puppet shows and usually he would appear as O'Brien and bring Judge along too.
    Wanderly Wagon stayed on the air until 1982 - no mean feat since RTÉ always seem like to finish any series (except the Late Late) after about three years but this wasn't the last we heard from the Lamberts. Fortycoats &Co., a spin off from Wanderly Wagon featuring the occasional character Johnny Fortycoats and his flying sweetshop, lasted until 1990.

    http://www.irish-tv.com/wander.asp

    The RTE concieved soap opera the Riordans was a superb production and here is a clip.

    I am too young to really remember it but my mum was a real fan. Look at the stillness of the actors in this shot. A criticism made by San Goldwyn of Laurence Olivier was that he could not work a camera and make the transition from the stage to the screen with economy of movement.

    Published: Thursday, 5th February, 2009 3:48pm
    Remembering 'The Riordans"...

    character.jpg by John Donohoe
    comments.jpg Comments (0) | print.jpg Print | [EMAIL="?subject=Article%20you%20might%20like,%20seen%20on%20the%20Meath%20Chronicle%20website&body=http://www.meathchronicle.ie/news/roundup/articles/2009/02/05/35685-remembering-the-riordans034 Remembering 'The Riordans"..."]weemail.jpg Email[/EMAIL]
    Cast and crew return to familiar ground
    Members of the cast of 'The Riordans", Irish television"s legendary rural soap of the 1960s and '70s, recently returned to the set location, The Flathouse in Dunboyne, for a documentary to be broadcast on RTE One next Tuesday night, 10th February.
    Actors such as Moira Deady and Biddy White-Lennon were joined by other members of cast in the visit to the farm of Mick and Lou Connolly.
    'The Riordans" was the first rural soap to be broadcast on Irish television, with Ardbraccan native actor, the late John Cowley, starring as Tom Riordan, head of the farming family.
    Even though set in a fictional village called Leestown in Co Kilkenny, it was in fact filmed in Dunboyne, as well as in Kilbride village and other locations in the area.
    Next week"s documentary was put together by Aisling O"Neill, better known to modern-day soap viewers as Carol Meehan in 'Fair City".
    Her late father, Chris O"Neill, played Michael Riordan in the series, and she decided to take a journey back through her father"s role to rediscover the cutting edge drama and social phenomenon that was 'The Riordans".
    She visits the Flathouse farm, where Lou and Mick Connolly bring her on a tour of the house and farmyard, which she had memories of visiting as a young girl when her father was filming.
    'The Riordans" ran from 1965 until the plug was dramatically pulled on it in 1979. John Cowley and Moira Deady played Tom and Mary Riordan, and Tom Hickey their son, Benjy. Rebecca Wilkinson was Jude Riordan, and Biddy White-Lennon played Maggie Neal, who was to marry Benjy. John Cowley"s wife, Annie D"Alton, played Minnie Brennan, wife of Frank O"Donovan"s Batty.
    Aisling O"Neill was destined to make an appearance herself - as Benji and Maggie"s new baby boy, Brendan!
    Following the success of 'Tolka Row", the Dublin-based
    urban soap, the fledgling RTE channel decided to try its hand at a rural production, the idea of the Controller of Programmes, Gunnar Ruggheimer. The original executive producer was Christopher Fitz-Simon, who contributes to the documentary, and the scriptwriter was James Douglas, with Wesley Burrowes later coming on board.
    A search was made for a suitable location within a short drive from Dublin. An advertisement placed in the Meath Chronicle for such a location produced a reply from William Connolly of the Flathouse.
    Christopher Fitz-Simons explained that Ruggheimer came up with the name 'The Riordans" after sticking a pen on a name in a phone book.
    Over the next 14 years, 600 episodes were made but, sadly, very few were preserved in the RTE library. However, the series still remains as legendary as ever, despite the fact that it is three decades since it was shown, and it has never been repeated.
    Unlike modern-day soaps, the actual rooms and kitchen in the Connolly household were used, with the Connollys having to leave the home for a day of filming.
    Over the years, as the equipment and cameras got bigger, sets were built in the Connolly barn.
    'The Riordans" delivered domestic drama, high comedy, agricultural advice and broached controversial topics like contraception and marriage breakdown. And into the bargain, thanks to farming bachelors and bikinis, it made rural Ireland sexy. A long-running theme was the ongoing battle between Benjy and his father, Tom, over farming practices.
    The cast of 'The Riordans" became stars before a celebrity culture existed, and attracted crowds to shop openings and other such appearances.
    Among those contributing to Tuesday"s programme are Tom Hickey, Biddy White-Lennon, Moira Deady, Christopher Fitz-Simon, Welsey Burrowes, IFA president Padraig Walshe, actor Bryan Murray and comedian Pat Shortt, with Mick and Lou Connolly also featured.
    At the height of the soap, 1.2 million viewers watched Benjy and Maggie get married in Kilbride Church. Afterwards, when Benjy went to Africa as a lay missionary, Maggie"s eyes were turned by a young farmhand, played by a budding young actor called Gabriel Byrne. This character was to go on to 'Bracken", a series which eventually led to another legendary rural soap, 'Glenroe".
    Before UK television began making 'Emmerdale Farm", its producers came over to Ireland to see how RTE"s flagship drama worked.
    In 1978, a press conference was called by RTE to say the series was ending the following year.
    It was also news to the cast at the time, and John Cowley always spoke with bitterness of the way the series was dropped

    http://www.meathchronicle.ie/articles/1/35685

    And the sketch show Halls Pictorial Weekly



    Frank Hall was a journalist ,broadcaster and film censor and TV presenter.

    He was joined by Frank Kelly and Eamonn Morrissey and others for this fine satirical show.

    Above is Morrissey doing his Minister for Hardship during the 1970's recession.

    In their time ,they were very innovative.

    They deserve a mention.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,032 ✭✭✭DWCommuter


    This clip from Flight of the Doves has a few interesting things in it. Carlisle Pier with Ferry and train. Dublin airport and shots of 1970s Dublin.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    Yes DW I have that one on my to get list as it features an AHHH Class and Cravens. Must have been a no budget effort as they weren't able to get footage in GB instead of pretending that the CIE train was a BR one arriving in Liverpool.
    Quite a strong cast including Tom Hickey, Niall Tobin, Emmet Bergin, Noel Purcell etc. see more here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067104/


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,032 ✭✭✭DWCommuter


    Yes DW I have that one on my to get list as it features an AHHH Class and Cravens. Must have been a no budget effort as they weren't able to get footage in GB instead of pretending that the CIE train was a BR one arriving in Liverpool.
    Quite a strong cast including Tom Hickey, Niall Tobin, Emmet Bergin, Noel Purcell etc. see more here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067104/

    The entire production was made in Ireland and I guess the production designer didn't see the need to disguise the train because apart from that, Carlisle pier could have been anywhere. I have the film on DVD simply because I enjoy watching the Dublin sequences. Dublin (on this scale) was never really featured much in films prior to the late 80s.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,900 ✭✭✭InTheTrees


    An amazing film. A fictional documentary.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Aran


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    InTheTrees wrote: »
    An amazing film. A fictional documentary.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Aran

    Clip here from You Tube - strange stuff but high quality filming considering how long ago it was made.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,032 ✭✭✭DWCommuter


    Clip here from You Tube - strange stuff but high quality filming considering how long ago it was made.


    A Flaherty Epic. It inspired David Lean and his approach to Ryans Daughter. Even Jim Sheridan tried giving it a nod in The Field.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,032 ✭✭✭DWCommuter


    Wellington Street, Dublin (off Dorset Street) doubling as the East End of London in the Siege of Sidney Street (1960).



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,032 ✭✭✭DWCommuter


    Glasnevin cemetery in Shake Hands with the Devil. (1959)



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    DWCommuter wrote: »
    Wellington Street, Dublin (off Dorset Street) doubling as the East End of London in the Siege of Sidney Street (1960).

    Had a look at this one last night. The siege scene is quite incredible and seriously lacking in reality or continuity. The house is being absolutely peppered by the police and yet most of the glass remains intact in the windows. The desperadoes in the house are incredibly accurate with their hand guns whereas the police with 'shotguns' and the soldiers with their rifles can't hit a barn door. Truly a movie for masochists or for a late night after far too much drink has been taken. :D

    Thanks for identifying the street, I couldn't make myself watch for long enough to establish that detail.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    A list of Irish Movies recently re-released on DVD
    Shamrocks & Shillelaghs: Screen gems from the Emerald Isle


    94485782_244x183.jpg Daniel Day-Lewis, seen here in 2009, won an Oscar for playing Irish author and writer Christy Brown in 1989's "My Left Foot."
    (Credit: Getty)
    (CBS) A taste of Ireland can be as close as your DVD shelf, local video store or online movie-streaming service.
    Over the years, a number of films have used Ireland and Irish themes to tell stories on the silver screen.
    For example, you can see Daniel Day-Lewis in his Oscar-winning performance as Irish artist and writer Christy Brown in 1989's "My Left Foot." Or, you can hear the 2008 Oscar-winning song, "Falling Slowly," in the movie "Once" - a modern day musical set on the streets of Dublin starring Glen Hansard from the Irish band "The Frames."
    Here are some others:
    - "The Informer" (1935): Victor McLaglen won an Oscar as a down-and-out Irish rebel who rats out a friend to collect a 20-pound reward.
    - "Odd Man Out" (1947): Director Carol Reed (The Third Man) spins a taut tale of a really bad day for Irish rebels. James Mason stars.
    - "The Quiet Man" (1952): John Ford's classic stars John Wayne as a Yankee boxing champion in Ireland who romances a fierce-tempered redhead (Maureen O'Hara).
    - "Cal" (1984): A young IRA volunteer (John Lynch) falls for an older woman (Helen Mirren) whose husband, a Protestant policeman, he helped to kill.
    - "The Dead" (1987): John Huston's last film stars his daughter Anjelica in a sumptuous adaptation of James Joyce's Dublinersstory.
    - "My Left Foot" (1989): Oscars went to Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker for the story of Irish artist and writer Christy Brown, afflicted by cerebral palsy. Jim Sheridan served as the director.
    - "Miller's Crossing" (1990): Joel and Ethan Coen's film stars Gabriel Byrne as an Irish-American mobster in a war with Italian newcomers. It features the best Tommy gun scene ever set to Danny Boy.
    - "The Field" (1990): Richard Harris is a raging-bull Irishman in a bidding war over a piece of turf.
    - "Hear My Song" (1991): A gem starring Ned Beatty as Irish tenor Josef Locke, a tax exile from England who sneaks into London for a concert.
    - "The Commitments" (1991), "The Snapper" (1993), "The Van" (1996): A comic trefoil of Dublin films, based on Roddy Doyle's Barrytown trilogy, feature Colm Meaney as a blustering patriarch. "The Commitments" is about a Dublin soul band, "The Snapper" follows an unwed daughter's pregnancy, and "The Van" tells the tale of a doomed fish-and-chips business.
    - "The Crying Game" (1992): This terrifically convoluted movie describes an IRA man (Stephen Rea) who befriends his British hostage (Forest Whitaker) then romances his lover. And there's a plot jolt midway through.
    - "In the Name of the Father" (1993): Director Jim Sheridan and Daniel Day-Lewis reunite for this gripping story about a Belfast man falsely imprisoned for terrorism.
    - "Into the West" (1993): This dark fable describes two brothers whose journey across Ireland on a mythical white horse heals their shattered family. Gabriel Byrne and Ellen Barkin star.
    - "The Secret of Roan Inish" (1994): Director John Sayles sails into the mystical with this story of a girl sent to live with grandparents amid seals, seabirds, fish and folklore in coastal Ireland.
    - "Michael Collins" (1996): Neil Jordan's biopic of Ireland's "Big Fella," who waged guerrilla warfare against the British. Liam Neeson and Julia Roberts star.
    - "Some Mother's Son" (1996): Helen Mirren is the mother of an inmate who joins IRA hunger strikes in the early 1980s.
    - "The Boxer" (1997): Daniel Day-Lewis and Emily Watson appear in the engrossing story of an ex-IRA member who takes up with an old flame after years in prison.
    - "Waking Ned Devine" (1998): Conniving Irishmen try to collect their dead buddy's lottery winnings.
    - "Dancing at Lughnasa" (1998): This sweet take on family resilience stars Meryl Streep as one of five Irish sisters.
    - "Agnes Browne" (1999): Anjelica Houston plays a woman who is thrown into emotional and financial crisis after the death of her husband in 1967 Dublin.
    - "Angela's Ashes" (1999): Based on Frank McCourt's memoir about growing up poor in Limerick, Ireland.
    - "Nora" (2000): Ewan McGregor stars as Irish author James Joyce in this film about his relationship with wife Nora Barnacle (played by Susan Lynch).
    - "Evelyn" (2002): Pierce Brosnan plays an unemployed father fighting to be reunited with his three children after they are placed in orphanages.
    - "Intermission" (2003): Cillian Murphy, Kelly Macdonald and Colin Farrell star in this story of intersecting lives and loves, set in Dublin.
    - "Veronica Guerin" (2003): Cate Blanchett plays the titular Irish journalist, whose investigation into the drug trade led to her murder in 1996.
    - "Rory O'Shea was Here" (2004): James McAvoy and Stephen Robinson star as two disabled men who strike up a friendship and together pursue emotional and physical independence.
    - "Breakfast on Pluto" (2005): Cillian Murphy plays a transgender orphan searching for love and her long-lost mother in small town Ireland and London in the 1970s.
    - "Once" (2006): A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant in Dublin, as they write and record songs that tell their love story.
    - "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" (2006): Set during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) and the Irish Civil War (1922-1923), two County Cork brothers (Cillian Murphy and Teddy O'Donovan) join the IRA to fight for Irish independence from the United Kingdom.
    - "Ondine" (2009): An Irish fisherman (Colin Farrell) discovers a woman in his fishing net who he believes to be a water nymph.
    - "Leap Year" (2010) A woman (Amy Adams) schemes to propose to her boyfriend in Dublin on Leap Day, inspired by an Irish tradition of leap-year proposals by women.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-20043906-10391698.html


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 27,115 CMod ✭✭✭✭spurious


    There's an old film called 'Rooney' about a binman in Dublin that has a lot of shots of the city.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    spurious wrote: »
    There's an old film called 'Rooney' about a binman in Dublin that has a lot of shots of the city.

    This poster, available on Amazon for 150 pounds (!), is the only thing that I can find available about the film apart from this rather disparaging review from the New York Times:
    http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9903E1D71F3AEF34BC4E53DFB0668383649EDE

    Looks like one for laying down and avoiding. :D

    41YMq8iNIoL._SS500_.jpg


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 27,115 CMod ✭✭✭✭spurious



    Looks like one for laying down and avoiding. :D

    Having seen it, I can confirm this. He's bizarrely into hurling too, but the few times when they go out on his bin lorry there are a few great shots of the city. I might see can I do some screen shots.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,724 ✭✭✭The Scientician


    Zardoz was filmed mainly in Co. Wicklow IIRC.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Zardoz was filmed mainly in Co. Wicklow IIRC.

    Therese sophisticated :D

    I found this too



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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    The Republic Loan film 1919

    I came accross it on-line looking for the 1916 Widows and its on a geneology site .




    The Republican Loan film (1919)

    Jim Sullivan (see his films) and John MacDonagh made this appeal film for the 1919 Republican Loan for the new self-declared Irish Republic.
    Jim Sullivan's brother-in-law, James O'Mara, was one of the three trustees of the funds of the underground Irish government, and one of its main fund-raisers.
    Sullivan and MacDonagh made this short film while making "Willy Reilly and his Colleen Bawn".
    This film was directed by John MacDonagh.
    [MacDonagh, 1976] said that: "In those dangerous and exciting times, no cinema owner would dare risk exhibiting the Republican Loans film so it was planned for a few volunteers in fast cars to visit certain cinemas, rush the operator's box, and, at gun-point, force the operator to take off the film he was showing, and put on the Loan film."
    Movie is here on my YouTube account.
    Download the video as MPEG [71 M] or WMV [95 M].
    Length: 7 minutes.
    The film

    The Republican Loan film was shot at St Enda's.
    Michael Collins, the Dail's Minister for Finance, is at St. Enda's, using as his desk the block on which Robert Emmet was executed in 1803. (This block is now in Kilmainham Gaol Museum.)
    He reads a letter from Michael Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, providing a loan to the Republic.
    Appearing in the film to loan money to the Republic are, in order:
    1. Margaret Pearse, the mother of executed 1916 leader Patrick Pearse.
    2. Count Plunkett, the father of executed 1916 leader Joseph Mary Plunkett.
    3. Countess Plunkett, the mother of Joseph Mary Plunkett.
    4. The mother of executed 1916 rebel Michael O'Hanrahan.
    5. The widow of executed 1916 leader Éamonn Ceannt.
    6. Kathleen Clarke, the widow of executed 1916 leader Tom Clarke.
    7. Nancy Brown, the widow of 1916 leader The O'Rahilly, who was killed in action [2:49 to 2:57].
    8. Margaret Pearse, sister of Patrick Pearse.
    9. Grace Gifford, the widow of Joseph Mary Plunkett, and sister-in-law of the 1916 leader Thomas MacDonagh (brother of the director John MacDonagh).
    10. Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington.
    11. The sister of Michael O'Hanrahan.
    12. The daughter of executed 1916 leader James Connolly. Presumably Nora Connolly.
    13. The widow of 1916 rebel Sean Connolly, who was killed in action.
    14. Arthur Griffith.
    15. Joseph McGuinness.
    16. Eoin MacNeill.
    17. Desmond Fitzgerald.
    18. Robert Brennan.
    19. Fionán Lynch.
    20. J.J. O'Kelly.
    21. Robert Barton.
    22. J.J. Walsh, director of the Film Company of Ireland.
    23. Philip Shanahan.
    24. Erskine Childers.
    25. Joseph MacDonagh, TD, headmaster of St.Enda's, and brother of the director John MacDonagh and the 1916 leader Thomas MacDonagh.
    26. Sean Milroy.
    27. Richard Hayes.
    28. The widow of executed 1916 rebel Michael Mallin.
    29. W.T. Cosgrave [6:20 to 6:29].
    Then there is a final shot of Arthur Griffith.
    st.endas.jpg
    The steps of St. Enda's are unchanged today.
    Photo 2005. Public domain image from here.


    Return to Films of James Mark Sullivan.

    http://humphrysfamilytree.com/OMara/republican.loan.html


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