…not really. The subject of this week’s Foreign Region DVD Report is Irvin Kershner’s 1964 The Luck of Ginger Coffey, a Montréal-set tale of an Irish né’er-do-well played with pitch-perfect integrity by the late, great Robert Shaw. Among the many things to recommend it is a relatively rare cinematic turn by the also late, also great Mary Ure, Shaw’s wife at the time. (Her previous husband had been the famously obnoxious playwright John Osborne. The woman certainly got put through the wringer.)
Ginger is both a terrifically acted and beautifully observed picture, the sort of thing that made you believe that Irvin Kershner had the stuff to become a really major director instead of the merely intermittently interesting one he turned out to be. Anyhoo, there’s more to be said about it at The Auteurs’, as usual.
I haven’t seen “The Young Captives” or “Face in the Rain”, but Kershner would probably be better evaluated if his films through “Loving” were more available on DVD. I’m puzzled as to why Fox has yet to release a DVD version of “The Flim Flam Man”.
As a Montréal film critic I have to say I’m ashamed I have never seen this. Thanks for the piece.
Also worth mentioning…
“As far as social commentary is concerned, one character sarcastically complains that while the native-born French speakers of the city make the effort to learn English, the English-speaking interlopers never bother to learn French. (The situation has changed substantively since the book was written and the film was made.”
You actually still hear this all the time. Not entirely without justification. Plus ça change.
Nice! Thanks for the review Glenn. I work for Metrodome and it’s good to know even these obscure little gems are finding the right people.
Thank you. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t even know Ginger Coffey was made into a movie, and I like Kershner’s work.
Ure was lovely and talented. Not enough range, I suppose, and not a strong enough personality. She was well cast as Alison in Look Back in Anger, making a hopeless noodle of a character most sympathetic, but is upstaged at every turn by Burton in top form and Claire Bloom as Helena, and it’s really not hard to see why. She has a special vulnerable quality, though. Richard Murphy wrote a nice poem named for her.
If I had to choose between Osborne and Shaw, a Scylla and Charybdis dilemma if ever there was one, I’d opt for Osborne, who could be charming when it was called for, reportedly. He was wayward, moody, and chronically unfaithful but at least he wouldn’t put a bun in your oven every eighteen months or so. I never liked Shaw, thought he was profoundly second-rate. If he’s better in Ginger Coffey I’ll be glad to alter that opinion.
I absolutely don’t want to hijack this thread or turn it into some kind of nonsense “Star Wars” debate. That said, no love for “The Empire Strikes Back”? I’m also partial to “Eyes of Laura Mars”, but that’s mostly the Carpenter script.
I think “Empire” is, in many respects, the best-made of the original trilogy, but aside from its dark tone doesn’t really have the hallmarks of Kershner’s earlier work. “Laura Mars” is something I’d love to see again soon.
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