The Molly Maguires (1970) on Netflix
In 1876 Pennsylvania, Irish coal miners called the Molly Maguires sabotage the mines that exploit them. A detective, James McKenna, is sent to infiltrate the group.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.8/104,888 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the coal fields of Pennsylvania in 1876, miners dig by hand by the light of flames on their hats, and a week of work pays 24 cents after the company deducts the cost of explosives and shovels. A secret society of Irish miners, the Molly Maguires, answers the owners with sabotage. Allan Pinkerton sends James McParlan, an Irish immigrant, to the town to find out who leads the group. He rents a room from Mary Raines and her father, calls himself McKenna, takes a job in the pit, and is watched with suspicion by Jack Kehoe, the man he is looking for. After a football match with a rival pit ends in a beating by police, McKenna is asked to carry out a revenge attack.
Cast
- Frances Heflinas Mrs. Frazier
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Molly Maguires (1970)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Eckley was so unchanged from its 1870s appearance that the only alterations needed for filming were removing television antennas and installing underground electric wiring; a prop wooden coal breaker still partially stands. The shoot saved the town from demolition and it became a mining museum run by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
- The Molly Maguires runs 14 minutes and 51 seconds, through three Henry Mancini scores, before the first word of dialogue is spoken.
- Henry Mancini's score replaced one already composed by Charles Strouse; Mancini used Irish modal harmony played on period instruments including Irish harp, tin whistle and squeezebox. Both scores were released in 2012 by Kritzerland on a limited edition CD that has sold out.
- The film's rebels are based on the real Molly Maguires, a secret society of Irish coal miners in nineteenth-century Pennsylvania led by Jack Kehoe, and Pinkerton detective James McParland infiltrated them. The same events supplied the extended flashback in the Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear.
