Suspension of disbelief is not easy when the slow pacing of a film serves to draw attention to its weaknesses. The idea that a man would spend his life hanging around Dublin in the vain hope that he could save a rich old person from an accident and then become their beneficiary, struck me as not so much whimsical as downright insane. And while there is such a thing as the attraction of opposites, it is hard to credit that such an attractive and vivacious woman as the one portrayed by Moira Lister would go to the lengths she does to pursue a bone-idle dreamer who makes it clear that he is not really interested in her. The perhaps inevitable twist toward the end can't help but point up the previous inanities. Robert Beatty, good as men of action, seems miscast in a role more suited to Alec Guinness, as does Stanley Holloway in a part that could have been infinitely funnier played by Alastair Sim. There are compensations in the gentle Irish humour and some likeable character actors, but it is little surprise that Another Shore didn't make more of an impact.
Review of Another Shore
