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The Quare Fellow More at IMDbPro »

14 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Idealistic youth discovers life's complications, 14 October 2005

Author: Moor-Larkin from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Untrammelled by knowledge of the Play I enjoyed this film immensely. Every performer does well in what is a carefully directed movie. There are a host of set-pieces where warders are framed in the bars of a prison cell. They are as much prisoners of the system as the inmates. The shebang of 'old lags' create amusement that leavens the otherwise serious nature of the film.

McGoohan plays a young recruit, starry-eyed in his belief in the law and justice. McGoohan must have been 34 years old at the time but he makes the most of his theatrical skills to create the innocence of youth. He uses his eyes very well to suggest puzzlement and obstinacy in turn as his assumptions of justice are challenged by the penal coda.

Sylvia Syms puts in a superb showing as the contrary colleen who carries her own guilty secret. Syms and McGoohan are thrown together in a coincidence of lodgings. She is not shy of a good-looking man and McG soon falls for her charms. This creates a terrible clash for the virgin recruit and his attempts to help the Quare Fellow avoid the hangman's noose are coloured by his treacherous behaviour with the man's wife! A terrible tangle indeed. MONSTERS BALL has recently explored this aspect of the tale in a different way.

The routines of Sixties prison life are exactingly recorded by the director and the regular scenes of patrolling guards mirror the routine of prison life. Despite McGoohan and Sym's attempts to bring mitigating factors to the attention of the authorities the knot of justice cannot be loosened and it's inevitable tightening disposes of the wretched Quare Fellow.

As well as it's obvious anti-capital-punishment flavour the movie also carries a sub-text of warders treating their inmates with humanity. Macken, as Regan, is, in some ways the star of the film. He recognises the inherent decency in the new recruit from the western isles. During the course of the final days of the Quare Fellow he is able to cultivate the new warder. Macken is forcibly retired by the bureaucrats who run the penal code in their mechanistic way. However he leaves happy that he has subverted that system by leaving behind him the humanitarian influence of McGoohan's Thomas Crimmin.

19 out of 27 people found the following review useful:
Gritty, demanding movie--watch MacGoohan act!, 4 February 2001

Author: mzav from New York, NY

The title 'translates' to "The Condemned Man," by the way. As a kid, I saw this movie soon after its U.S. release; so after almost 40 years, I remember little except that (1)it was visually unlike any movie I'd seen; (2)I enjoyed it very much, especially (3)Patrick MacGoohan's performance. I hope to hunt this one down, see it again, and return here to relate more specifics.

9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Doesn't pull any punches, 17 July 2009

Author: blanche-2 from United States

"The Quare Fellow" is a 1962 film starring Patrick McGoohan and Sylvia Syms. Based on the play by Brendan Beehan, it is not faithful to the source. If you know the play, you will probably be disappointed.

McGoohan plays Thomas Crimmon, a new guard at a prison - he's young, devoted to the law, and believes in his work. He soon finds his belief challenged. He meets a woman, Kathleen, (the beautiful Sylvia Syms) with whom he becomes smitten almost immediately. She is trying to get her husband a stay of execution and not having much luck. It turns out that she and Thomas live in the same rooming house, and the two are attracted to one another. She appeals to him to help her get a stay- will he? Thomas goes to a senior guard, Regan (Thomas Macken) to ask for his help and guidance.

This is a hard-hitting film about capital punishment. It shows men digging the grave, the hangman going in to see the prisoner as someone else so he can observe the size of his neck, etc. It's pretty gruesome stuff.

The entire atmosphere is depressing. The performances are wonderful. McGoohan, whom most of us know as an assured, smart man, here is young and naive. He is excellent. Syms is compelling as Kathleen. Thomas Macken as Regan is a real standout as a humanitarian guard who has seen too many hangings.

"The Quare Fellow" - and quare means a man about to be executed - is not a film to watch if you're feeling down. It's a strong indictment against capital punishment and very well done. But after watching a movie that takes place in a dank prison, a bar, and cheap lodgings where people talk about death makes for a real downer. Still, it's a good movie.

6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
A fine film, 9 April 2008
Author: theinnerlight87 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Filmed in Ireland in 1962, The Quare Fellow brings up the debate of the time, whether capital punishment is right or wrong. Is it right to fight murder with murder?

A young, idealistic and inexperienced young warder arrives at his first prison. His head filled with the laws and ways of the land, he is ready to serve as he's always wanted to serve. Though nervous and wide-eyed as he follows his new mentor along with his routines, we see the strength with which Thomas Crimmin defends his beliefs, as Regan, a much more experienced Warder, tells of his. Regan has seen too many hangings in his time he says, as Crimmin is introduced to the faceless man behind the narrative, the quare fellow, the condemned man.

Crimmin goes home to his rented room to find that he is sharing the house with the quare fellow's wife. The character of Kathleen is a modern woman, seen as slightly unethical at the time. She drinks, she commits adultery, and she is a rebel in a largely religious country. There, our main plot begins, Crimmin's supposed affair with Kathleen. Will this liaison change him? As we find there is a chance of reprieve, what is the destiny of the quare fellow?

The final build up of tension is released with the very poignant scene of the hanging of the quare fellow. Split between two locations, we see reactions of all characters. Kathleen's tears, Thomas's quiet strength, the silence of the locals. Standing at the gallows with the rope already around his neck, the man starts to collapse. Crimmin catches him and steadies him. The clock strikes, and the trap door is opened. All characters cross themselves in prayer and stunned silence. Crimmin subtly does the same, while looking down at the man.

The elder warder, finally coming to terms with his own set of morals, leaves the prison. We see that the young warders career, despite everything, is just beginning.

Drama combined with gritty realism and light humour, the quare fellow is a showcase for talents shown in McGoohan, Sym and Macken.

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
The Condemned, 16 July 2009

Author: sol1218 from brooklyn NY

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

**SPOILERS** Powerful indictment against the death penalty with the condemned man, known only as the "Quare Fellow", in the movie undeniably guilty of a capital crime: Murder. What this "Quare Fellow" did was murder and later dismember his brother when he caught him in bed with his wife Kathleen and just lost control of himself. The fact that this was never brought out in his murder trial is the reason that the down on his luck "Quere Fellow" is now facing the hangman's noose!

New kid on the block or Mountjoy Prison guard Thomas Crimmin has his hands full on his first day on the job in being the one to help in the execution of two men at the prison. As things turn out one of the mens, called "Silvertop", trip to the gallows was to be rescinded to life imprisonment by the prison governor. But the poor guy, not knowing that at the time, ended up doing the executioners job by hanging himself in his cell. Now with only the "Quare Fellow" to dispatch Crimmin has seconds thoughts about his job that has to do with helping the hangman in dispatching him!

It's when Crimmin meets the "Quare Fellow's" distraught wife Kathleen that he soon realizes that the guy got a raw deal and tries with what little time, 8:00 AM the very next morning, he still has left to save his life. As it turned out Kathleen kept the secret of her husbands killing her lover in that she was, being a devote Catholic, greatly embarrassed in admitting that she was cheating on him! And worst then even that the person that she was cheating with was his very own, who was just as guilty as she was, brother!

As the minutes slowly ticked away for the "Quare Fellow's" upcoming execution Crimmin tried his best to get the local governor, as well as Prime Minster, to overturn his death sentence. This not only caused Crimmin to lose his enthusiasm for the death penalty not just in the case of the "Quare Fellow" but on everyone else, no matter what the circumstances are, on death row! His now unflinching determination to have the death penalty rescinded is something that Crimmin pledged to spend the rest of his life in doing even while being forced, in being a prison guard, to execute it!

Patrick McGoohan as prison guard Thomas Crimmin gives one of his finest performances as a man torn between his job and his conscience. Head of the guards Regan-played by Walter Macken-as Crimmin's boss is equally effective as a man who's seen so much death, he had witnessed 14 hangings in his 17 years as a prison guard, that he's become sickened of it and just can't wait to retire from his job as soon as he's eligible.

***SPOILERS*** In the end there's nothing that Crimmin could do to save the "Quare Fellow's" life but it was that unsettling experience that made him finally, after years of being in the dark, see the light in just how inhuman government sponsored executions really are. And with that new found knowledge and wisdom he'll now do everything in his power to have it legislated out of existence! And Crimmin is so steadfast to do that even if it ends up killing him in the process!

6 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Misses the mark, 15 July 2009

Author: David (Handlinghandel) from NY, NY

This is certainly a compelling movie. The acting is fine to very good. Sylvia Syms is especially good. I think she may be a little miscast: Her elegant manner comes through even in a cat fight.

I guess it was an admirable undertaking. And the basic theme is still there: Hanging is a pretty brutal thing for civilized men to do, even in the name of justice.

But the wit of the original play is mostly lost. The story is opened up for the movie. That happened a lot, especially in those times. But in making it more cinematic, its original punch was lost.

A major character is either left out or greatly toned-down. What's left is a 1930s Warner Brother prison movie transposed to the UK. Those movies were almost always at least entertaining and were often powerful. This is entertaining and a little powerful. But I'm not sure it's Brendan Behan.

9 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Not much like the play, 5 December 2001

Author: Isildurs Bane from Oberlin, OH

I made the mistake of expecting this film to be pretty faithful to Brendan Behan's play. Instead the moviemakers added so much as to lose very much the play's essence. I gave the movie a 6, because what they did do was decent otherwise. But please, go watch the play live or else read it.

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