Another Shore (1948) User Reviews

1940s Slacker movie!

[Gerard Gleeson · 7/10 · 8 March 2001]

Not as well known as the other Ealing Comedies and not quite in the same league. However if you like the genre you'll probably enjoy this one.

Maybe not a gem but at least a semi-precious stone.

Gulliver's Travails

[writers_reign · 7/10 · 10 October 2019]

Canadian Robert Beatty arrived in the UK in 1936 and by the mid-forties he had established himself as a reliable, competent, supporting actor who appeared to be in constant employment in British films in the late forties and early fifties. What leads he did get were in 'small' films like Portrait of Alison' and this charmer from Ealing which finds him as a civil servant dreaming of escaping the rat race and basking in a Pacific paradise by virtue of being in the right place at the right time, which will be when an affluent person is involved in an accident and 'saved' by Gulliver who will be suitably rewarded and so able to finance his one-way passage to Paradise. He gets within striking distance but love - in the shape of Moira Lister, with whom Beatty has absolutely no chemistry - rears its ugly head and he remains a fully clothed civil servant. There's a fine supporting cast led by Stanley Holloway and on the whole it dererves to be shown far more widely than it has been so far.

Flimsy whimsy

[wilvram · 5/10 · 24 May 2020]

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.

A perplexing piece of pretentious art.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 28 June 2022]

While there are some enjoyable individual moments in this Ealing comedy, and a few that bring on different emotions or possibility of conversation, the film overall is truly perplexing and not something that I can recommend as an enjoyable film in spite of the cast. Robert Beatty plays a disillusioned man who turns to oddball behavior in order to reach his desire of retiring on a tropical island far away from society.

His idea is to latch onto someone wealthy so he can get the money to do so. Whether hanging out on a park bench or at a beach or for weeks on the steps to a bank, he's there, doing nothing and creating frustration for those who see him. When he's at the bank, he creates a commotion, and it's amusing to see how many people are bothered by his presence there and feel they have to speak their mind as to how uncomfortable he makes them.

The pretty Moira Lister is the curious young lady who sees him on the beach in an odd moment, while Beatty is fantasizing about fishing, and Stanley Holloway is an eccentric man he encounters early on in the park. Baby is fascinated by the fact that Holloway, very well dressed, hides half a crown under his foot while a little old lady searches for it. Holloway disappears after going to a bar and then pops up after Beatty has left the bank stoop. All this takes place in Dublin so there are some interesting locations, and fabulous photography. But after a while, I began to wait for something really important to happen, and like watching waves on the shore, after a while it became tiresome.

An Ealing curio

[nqure · 7/10 · 28 March 2022]

The opening credits set the tone, tragi-comic, for this film & its rather ambivalent ending.

It is set against the lively backdrop of Dublin with its busy streets & pubs & stout/porter reminiscent of Flann O'Brien's haunts. Daydreamer Gulliver Shiels fantasizes about living on a paradisal island (Roratonga) far away from the noisy hubbub of Dublin. Penniless, he eventually comes up with an absurd notion of how to raise the 200 guineas for the trip. He is reminiscent of 'Billy Liar', fixated on a specific place rather than creating his own invented world (Ambrosia).

His dreams begin to get undermined, when he encounters, ironically on a beach of all places, Jennifer, a vivacious middle class English girl who seems attracted to him despite his apparent lack of interest. I did like the way the film flitted between imagined sequences & reality, like when Gulliver fantasizes about being on his paradisal island, in a ridiculous garb of grass-skirt & carrying a spear for fishing, only to be brought back to reality by the appearance of Jennifer, interrupting his fantasy. In a sense, this almost heralds the very conclusion of the film, if we view her as the woman who punctures Gulliver's dream.

The relationship between Gulliver & Jennifer, two opposites, does feel even more unbelievable than his bizarre attempts to obtain the money for his one-way trip -Gulliver's dreamy impractical personality seemed better suited to the young Irish country girl at the beginning who tolerated his quirky behaviour. I do think Beatty & Lister possess some chemistry, however, & Lister as Jennifer is a versatile actress, flitting between vivacity, but also pathos when she believes Gulliver is resolved to go to his island without her. They spend one apparent last evening in Dublin (with its myriad life) before they return to his lodgings & share a passionate kiss before she flees distraught in perhaps the most moving scene of the film (tragic). However, the resourceful Jennifer has one final trick up her sleeve as she perhaps engineers a bizarre situation of her own to prevent Gulliver from leaving.

The ending does feel bitter-sweet as Gulliver returns to his job as a civil servant with echoes of Gordon Comstock out of Orwell's 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying'. Matters of the heart take precedence over the world in his head. The film reminded me of 'I Know Where I'm Going' (Powell & Pressburger). The lead protagonist there does find her way despite being lost at first. You feel Gulliver has lost something of himself by the end of 'Another Shore'.

Homely Rule...

[blacknorth · 8/10 · 1 May 2007]

Self-confessed waster and non-literary man Gulliver Sheils hatches a plan to escape glum 40's Ireland for the South Seas...

This beautiful little Ealing comedy is rarely seen, probably because it has no big names and is an Ealing experiment in Irish humour rather than their usual business of English. Robert Beatty, fresh from his turn as an IRA man in Odd Man Out, makes a very convincing loafer, all excuses permanently in hand - 'I'm not a literary man, at all.' The rarely seen Moira Lister shines as his middle class love interest, much more rooted to the real world and trying to make Beatty respectable enough for marriage. And there's a small turn by Wilfred Brambell looking very much like Albert Steptoe fifteen years before Albert Steptoe.

The ending is very much an English solution to an Irish problem. If only Home Rule assured us all a wage and girl...

I also wonder if Brendan Behan saw this film, through a beer glass in the late 40's in some Dublin fleapit, and decided to adopt its style. It certainly anticipates much of his take on Irish character and humour.

Almost a minor masterpiece!

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 2 March 2018]

Rarely has a film benefited from such outstanding location photography. It opens with a lyrical montage of dawn over Dublin which leads quite naturally into a sequence of workers arriving at the Customs House (a magnificent high angle shot as they trudge across the marbled floor of an enormous vestibule) which cuts into a shot of a worker arriving at a rather poky little office to take the place of Gulliver Shiels. His desk hasn't been touched for 18 months and as its roll-top lid is drawn back the camera tracks in to a flood of travel leaflets which come spilling out. This fades into a shot of Shiels taking it easy as he lies in bed reading a travel folder.

After this deft introduction of the principal character, the other main protagonists are introduced with almost equal facility. Moira Lister makes a charming study against the clouds, as the waves break against the shore of a pebbly beach and our hero clambers up the hill-side to catch a smoke-puffing train. Unfortunately, she doesn't live up to this intriguing introduction and proves to be rather a drag in a spate of wearisome romantic clinches with the hero which would have been better left on the cutting-room floor.

Fortunately, the main story is ingenious and novel and amusing and has some splendid characterizations - Stanley Holloway as a delightfully fruity but financially embarrassed tippler, and a host of lesser but equally bright cameos such as Michael Dolan's grumpy, dog-hating attorney (those who saw him in A Hard Day's Night will hardly recognize Wilfred Brambell as his dead-faced partner), Maureen Delaney as an evil-eyed newspaperwoman, Michael Golden as a fair-minded detective, and Desmond Keane as the black-visaged Parkes. Sheila Manahan is charming in a small part as a maid. Despite his prominence in the cast list, Michael Medwin has a small and relatively unimportant role. Beatty's Irish accent is thoroughly convincing.

Charles Crichton sometimes comes across as a rather dull director, though often he displays considerable flair when present on actual locations as he does here (and in The Third Secret). How he achieved some of the remarkable high angle shots beggars the imagination and one admires his patience in waiting for just the right atmosphere in many of his street scenes.

Another Shore is often brilliantly edited (e.g. the Carnival sequence, and that wonderfully amusing and inventive montage in which Beatty and Holloway prepare for their trip) and reveals the special skills that a director like Crichton who came up through film editing often acquires. It is obvious that Crichton knows exactly the right angles to shoot to get his effects. The action scenes in particular are staged with considerable expertise and the way they are edited is a major factor in their success.

Auric has contributed a charming, lyrical music score which perfectly captures the mood and atmosphere of this delightful film, so aptly sub-titled "A Tragi-Comedy of Dublin Life". The art direction is most attractive (though Miss Lister's costumes are often rather dull) and production values are first class. If only it were shorn of just a little of its spurious love interest, Another Shore would be a minor masterpiece.

A rerasonable fantasy.

[ceadcara · 8/10 · 14 May 2003]

Another Shore is a reasonable fantasy, or modern fairy-tale. It has a strong cast, is well directed, and is based on a good book.

In hindsight it is also a socio-documentary of Dublin. It shows very vividly the post-war Dublin, a city that no longer exists.