Ryan's Daughter (1970) on Netflix
R19703h 26mDramaHistoryRomance
In Kirrary on Ireland's Dingle Peninsula, Rosy Ryan marries the schoolmaster Charles Shaughnessy, then meets Major Randolph Doryan of the nearby British army camp, and is drawn to him.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.4/1011,785 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes50%
Trailer
Plot summary
Rosy Ryan, the only daughter of Thomas Ryan, who keeps the pub in Kirrary, a village on the Dingle Peninsula where nationalist neighbors taunt the soldiers at a nearby British camp, is bored by village life. She marries Charles Shaughnessy, the widowed schoolmaster, imagining that he will bring excitement, though he warns her he will not. In October 1917 Major Randolph Doryan arrives to take command of the camp, a Victoria Cross winner from the Western Front with a crippled leg and shell shock. He comes to the pub while Rosy tends the bar alone and collapses in a flashback to the trenches; she comforts him, and their kiss ends when her father and others arrive.
Cast
- Arthur O'Sullivanas Mr. McCardle
- Evin Crowleyas Maureen
- Douglas Sheldonas Driver
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ryan's Daughter (1970)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jones, engaged to Olivia Hussey and not attracted to Miles, refused to do the forest love scene, so Miles conspired with Mitchum, who drugged Jones by sprinkling an unspecified substance on his cereal; he overdosed him and Jones was nearly catatonic in the scene.
- Mitchum was reluctant to take the role and, pressed by Lean on why he would not be available, said he was actually planning on committing suicide; scriptwriter Bolt replied that if he finished the film first he would happily stand the expenses of his burial.
- Alec Guinness turned down Father Collins even though the part had been written with him in mind: a Roman Catholic convert, he objected to what he felt was an inaccurate portrayal of a Catholic priest, and his conflicts with Lean on Doctor Zhivago also contributed.
- Major Doryan was written for Marlon Brando, who accepted before problems on Burn! forced him out; Lean then saw Christopher Jones in The Looking Glass War and decided he had to have him, casting him without ever meeting him.
- Because Jones could not do a convincing British accent, and because Lean thought his voice too flat to be compelling, all of Jones's lines were overdubbed by Carry On actor Julian Holloway.
- At the appeal hearing MGM executives said they needed the less restrictive rating to get more audience into the theaters or the company could not survive financially; the appeal was granted, and Jack Valenti considered it one of the tarnishing marks on the rating system.
- At a gathering of the National Society of Film Critics, Time critic Richard Schickel asked Lean "how someone who made Brief Encounter could make a piece of bullshit like Ryan's Daughter".
- Jones claimed to have had an affair with Sharon Tate, who was killed by Charles Manson and his followers during filming, which devastated him.
