The Playboys

Plot synopsis:
In a small Irish village in 1957, Tara Maguire, a young resolute woman, is the talk of the town because she is having a baby out of wedlock, and refuses to name the father. During Sunday mass she goes into labour giving birth to a baby boy. Sergeant Brendan Hegarty, the local police officer of An Garda Síochána, and Mick, a local landowner, vie for Tara's hand in marriage, but she refuses them both.
Mick loses his cattle and facing economical ruin commits suicide. People in town blame his death on Tara's rejection. The local priest, Father Malone, attempts to compel Tara to marry the constable before another tragedy takes place. But Tara is not in love with the solemn and older Sgt. Hegarty, a reformed alcoholic, who hides the fury of his unrequited love for Tara in his devotion for her. He carves a cradle for the baby, but Tara vehemently refuses the gift and his attentions.
The beautiful and strong willed Tara lives with her sister Brigid and is determined to make it on her own. She supplements her income as a dressmaker, raising chickens in her garden and smuggling goods from the nearby border with Northern Ireland. However even in this she has to face Hegarty who discovers her secret illegal dealings while riding his bicycle at night looking for smugglers on the roads.
The arrival of a shabby troupe of travelling actors called the "Playboys", stirs the town. Tara surprises Tom, one of the actors, stealing one of her chickens. He has to pay for it, but he is smitten with her beauty and her character. They flirt and spar around the village, all under the resentful eye of the constable. The Playboys are a success in the sleepy village and the tent is full when the show starts at night. One of their numbers with female dancers lifting their skirts causes a furious response from Father Malone, who has another opinion of what is wholesome entertainment. The actors are forced to switch to staging Othello. A blind woman gets so excited during a show that she suddenly regains her vision. Not only do the group of actors have to deal with discord when the time to share the dividends comes, but the recent arrival of television threatens the survival of their art.
The romance between Tara and Tom grows slowly over the few days the theatrical company is in the village. Her past has made her suspicious of men, and Hegarty's intrusions provide an added obstacle. He tells her that Tom is a liar who already has a wife, which turn out not to be true. Hegarty confronts Tom and tells him that he is the father of the baby, but Tara assures him that not only she does not have any feelings for the constable but that the baby was conceived on a lonely night without deep feeling involved on her part.
One of the actors is involved with the IRA and has smuggled some explosives. When the explosives are accidentally discovered by Hegarty he blames his rival. Tom is framed as an IRA man, but he breaks out of jail with Tara's help. When Gone With the Wind plays at the local cinema, the actors stage an instant, improvised knock-off of it, with Atlanta burning while Tom struggles with his lines in the role of Rhett Butler. Comically, Fred (Milo O'Shea) has to take the role of Mammy. During the show the triangle between Tara, Tom and Sergeant Hegarty comes to a boiling point. The performance is interrupted by the frantic Brigid. Hegarty, drunk, has taken the baby. He comes to the tent, drunk, but gives the baby back to Tara. There is a confrontation between Tom and the Sergeant, but the Sergeant painfully loses in a public fist fight with Tom. Even after this defeat, he trashes the tent. The next day the time for the playboys to leave has come. Hegarty, now jobless and in civilian clothes, also leaves the town for good. Tom is happily surprised when Tara decides to join the group with her baby and share a life together, perhaps in the end to take on a new life with Tom in America.

Tags: romantic

Review:
A very beautiful Irish setting, a most somber Irish tale.
It's 1957 and the setting is a small village in Ireland.
Tara (Robin Wright Penn) lives with her sister and runs a tailoring/dressmaking shop.
She has recently set the local tongues to wagging by having a baby out of wedlock and not naming the father.
The town priest is encouraging her to look at Brendan (Albert Finney), a local police officer madly in love with her, as a possible husband.
But, Tara is not in love with him and won't consider it.
A second suitor actually commits suicide for the love of her, it is supposed.
Only when a troupe of actors comes to town does Tara meet someone who interests her.
That would be Tom (Aidan Quinn), a most friendly and engaging gentleman who stars in the troupe's productions.
However, Brendan is most displeased to have a rival and thwarts Tom's attentions as best he can.
Will Tara be able to find happiness?
The Irish setting is beautiful, as no one can disguise the loveliness of the country.
However, the story here is most somber.
Life in this village is restrictive and sobering, with hardly a break, for anyone, from the harsh realities of life.
Penn's Tara is a very worthy lady, who defies the odds to keep her son.
Finney is wonderfully scary as the policeman who hounds Tara, day and night, to accept his hand.
By contrast, Quinn's Tom is a breath of fresh air, with his good spirits and funny manners.
If you wish to see Ireland, and can put up with a story of a depressing nature, this is a good view.
For, although the tale is sad, it does have its moments and the scenery is a knockout.
Just do not expect a mirthful tale, as depicted on the handsome box cover..
great spirit; great acting.
In the tradition of low-key Anglo-European films, this is a brilliant depiction of the meeting of an independent spirit with a closed community.
This is one of their own so they will not condemn absolutely.
At the same time they cannot understand why, or how, anyone can take a radically different path.
Paraphrasing Victor Borge, this is acting that is so low key it is off the keyboard but because of that it resonates in a register that affects absolutely.
Absotutely brilliant.
This is what real movies are all about.
I don't really have any more to say but the instructions are that one has to write a minimum of 10 lines and/or 10,000 words.
Hopefully this entry meets that minimum requirement because if this entry convinces one more person to see this movie it will have been worth it..
A band of strolling players are we!.
This film was billed as a drama.
You could have fooled me.
The productions of the travelling group of thespians are the funniest things I have ever seen.Forget the plot about the young unwed mother with two suitors and just watch the hilarious performances of the rag-tag travelling gypsy players who tour Ireland performing in a threadbare tent, led by the flamboyant actor manager played with gusto by Milo O'Shea.
For those of you who are not familiar with this great Irish stage actor, Mr. O'Shea played Sam Malone's Irish Uncle in the Woody's Wedding two-part episode of Cheers, on TV.
The troupe of players are not above changing the script to accommodate whatever actors or costumes are available, and they open up with a song and dance act, no matter what the play.
Lines are read from cue cards, and even made up as they go along.
Even Othello begins with a can can.
You will never be able to watch Gone with the Wind with a straight face again after you have seen it performed as a musical in a tent in a small Irish town.
I have not laughed as much since I saw the theatrical troupe in a Midsummer Night's Dream.The lead actors, Robin Wright and Aidan Quinn make an attractive couple, and Albert Finney does well as the heavy, but it is the players who make this movie such a joy..
The discreet charm of the past..
This is a fine depiction of a small Irish village,in a green country where a woman has a baby whereas she's not married.And however she could,because,at the beginning of the movie,she had two men longing for her.But,and it's the only modern touch in a rather obsolete movie,she wants a man she really loves and she does not care about the piece of advice the well-meaning and the priests are always giving to her.Albert Finney has got a thankless part as the rather ugly cop, even if he's just a jealous guy.Robin Wright is a good lead.That said,it's not what you call full throttle ,and some people might think that the tempo is really slow..
A shallow soap opera disguised as a dramatic movie.
As is, this movie is loosely a romantic comedy which tries desperately to inject drama into a shallow, unconvincing plot.
The story centers around the plight of a woman who has a child out of wedlock in a small Irish village in the 1950s.
Instead of exploring the realistic spectrum of human behavior that could arise in such a situation, it relies on stale caricatures.
It spends a lot of screen time trying to show how hypocritical all the village folk are as they look down on this poor single mother yet indulge in bad behavior every chance they get.
For as we all know from watching many Hollywood movies, in the 1950s the world was ruled by silly hypocritical cavemen who forced their oppressive, outdated morality on the enlightened young'uns.The main characters are not especially likable and when the single mother develops a new love interest, the plot fails to give a convincing reason why the couple would care about each other (beyond lust).
That makes it very hard to care what happens.Honestly, some people might think this movie is OK, but very few people will love it.
The acting is decent, but the plot is just so uninspired and built around unrealistic clichés that it doesn't connect with the heart..
An older movie, in Ireland, with a traveling show theme..
It is rural Ireland and yearly a traveling show comes to town.
They call themselves "The Playboys" because they do lots of different things, but feature different plays put on in a very small tent and on a vary small stage with minimal set.
In one funny scene, we see towns people going to the movie house to see the film, "Gone With The Wind", and the next evening the Playboys are doing their stage interpretation of the same story, improvising after seeing the movie.Aidan Quinn is Tom Casey, one of the members of the show troupe.
He seems to be an irregular in that he doesn't plan to make it a career like the others.Robin Wright is in full Irish accent as local townswoman Tara Maguire, single, and sharing a residence with her less pretty sister.
Tara is the town scandal because she is pregnant out of wedlock, and she refuses to say who the father is.
She and Tom are immediately attracted to each other, although she tries to keep her distance from the traveling show types.The other key character is Albert Finney as Constable Brendan Hegarty.
He is the sheriff in this one-police town.
However his regional supervisor is not always happy with his efforts.As Tom gets friendly with Tara, Hegarty becomes agitated and protective, seemingly wanting to prevent Tara from falling for this guy.It is a fairly interesting and entertaining story, and the acting is first-rate, especially by Albert Finney.SPOILERS: It turns out Hegarty is the father of Tara's child, in one encounter in the grass after she had a bit too much to drink.
While Hegarty is madly in love with her, and wants her as his wife, she has no romantic feelings for him.
As the movie ends Tara and Tom leave town, their fate unknown..
Love and jealousy in a small village.
The Playboys is directed by Gillies MacKinnon, is written by Shane Connaughton and Kerry Crabbe.
The film stars Robin Wright, Albert Finney, Aidan Quinn and Niamh Cusack.Ireland, in the 1950's.
The occupants of a village are scandalised when Tara(Robin Wright)gets pregnant without being married, she refuses to say who the father is.
Tara is ostracised by everyone in the village apart from her sister Brigid(Niamh Cusack)and the local policeman, Sergeant Hegarty(Albert Finney).Hegarty loves Tara very much but is much older than her and she doesn't love him.
He tries to be kind to her and offers to help her with the baby, she throws all his kindness back in his face and he gets very angry.
Matters aren't helped by the arrival of a group of travelling actors.
Tara falls in love with one of them, the funny and passionate Tom Casey (Aidan Quinn).
Their growing relationship enrages Hegarty and the two become rivals for Tara.Finney gives the standout performance in this for me, he perfectly conveys a man who is not used to showing his feelings but tries very hard for the woman he loves.
Finney also does a good job of portraying this mans anger slowly building up and up until it has to be released, one of his very best performances.
Robin Wright is superb as Tara, Robin makes her tough and passionate.
Aidan is a great deal of fun as the handsome travelling actor who falls for Tara.