The Shooting Party (1985)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Alan Bridges

Writers:

Julian Bond (writer)
Isabel Colegate (novel)

Release Date:

September 1985 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

On the eve of WWI, Sir Randolph Nettleby, a British aristocrat, holds a

Plot Keywords:

Autumn | Upstairs Downstairs | Hunting | Society | Accidental Shooting

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

James Mason	...	Sir Randolph Nettleby
Edward Fox	...	Lord Gilbert Hartlip
Dorothy Tutin	...	Lady Minnie Nettleby
John Gielgud	...	Cornelius Cardew
Gordon Jackson	...	Tom Harker
Cheryl Campbell	...	Lady Aline Hartlip
Robert Hardy	...	Lord Bob Lilburn
Aharon Ipalé	...	Sir Reuben Hergesheimer
Joris Stuyck	...	Count Tibor Rakassyi
Rebecca Saire	...	Cicely Nettleby
Sarah Badel	...	Ida Nettleby
Rupert Frazer	...	Lionel Stephens
Judi Bowker	...	Lady Olivia Lilburn
John J. Carney	...	Jarvis
Ann Castle	...	Lady Mildred Stamp

Runtime:

98 min | Germany:93 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Spain:18 | West Germany:6 | UK:15 | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Knebworth House, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Company:

Castle Hill Productions

Trivia:

The last film of Thomas Heathcote.

Quotes:

[an animal rights protester has just disrupted the shooting]
Sir Randolph Nettleby: This is a very well produced pamphlet. Where do you get a thing like this printed? Is it expensive? You don't mind my asking you?
Cornelius Cardew: Oh no, not at all. I know a very good printer in Dorking, just near where I live. An excellent man of anarchistic views. He gives me very good rates.
Sir Randolph: Ah, special terms. Hmm. He wouldn't give me such good ones, I suppose.
Cardew: Are you a pamphleteer too, sir?
Sir Randolph: Well, I was thinking of making a sort of foray in that direction.
Cardew: A polemic, would you say?
Sir Randolph: Yes, I think that's the right word.
Cardew: Would you call it a *diatribe*?
Sir Randolph: Yes, I
[...]

Movie Connections:

References The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Shadows of Sunset on the Empire,Say What

If you remember Upstairs/Downstairs on PBS about the two different worlds in one house in London before the Titantic sailed and barbed wire and mass slaughter decorated the landscape of Europe,then this is a perfect accomplishment. Gordon Jackson who played the butler in the series is cast here as a poacher who gets hired to become a beater, someone who rouses the targeted wildlife in this case grouse I believe into the gunsights of the "swells". The English have a love- hate relationship with that time of determined inequality; James Mason in his last role, plays the lord of the manor,an intelligent patriarch of his ancestral holdings,several steps above the stereotype of a haughty inbred weasel satirized memorably by the Monty Python crew in their "Upperclass Twit of the Year" sketch. Mason is an aristocrat with a capital A who feels it is his DUTY to be the best not an entitlement. The others in this film range from starcrossed lovers he doomed to be a casualty of 20th Century warfare,the others representing snobs,fools, frivolous yet empty souled individuals who actually believed a little bloodletting would revitalize their spirits during the hunt and the subsequent war. While they may resent the foreigners for calling the ir English lackeys peasants it is how they treat them. Except for James Mason they are his yeomen the family's men at arms who probably followed his ancestors into battle when they raised a regiment of horse or foot for whatever struggle be it against the rival Europeans,killing rebel Scots or Irish ,or tangling with those American Cousins. Watch this film and see the difference between being a star and being an actor