The Plough and the Stars (1936) User Reviews

Newsreels add to the realism

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 27 October 2005]

Sean O'Casey, Ireland's greatest playwright, probably was lucky to have his work about the Irish rebellion made by John Ford. The former Sean O'Fearna had a brother in the IRA back in the day so he knew quite a bit about it.

I saw this year's ago and could kick myself for not getting a VHS copy of this when it was out. What I remember best was Ford's good use of newsreel footage edited into the story of the Clitheroe family and how the Easter Rebellion is affecting their lives in Dublin.

Preston Foster and Barbara Stanwyck make fine leads. Foster had just come off a good part in John Ford's more well known Irish work, The Informer. And Stanwyck was a good enough actress to cover up the somewhat phony brogue she adopted. That was not the only time she used the brogue. You can hear her as Molly Monahan in Cecil B. DeMille's Union Pacific which is readily available and broadcast often.

Sean O'Casey had a bigger world view than just Irish independence. Very much like that greatest of Irish patriots Daniel O'Connell. He wanted a just society to emerge as well. I think it has in the Republic. I think Mr. O'Casey would be at home in Dublin now. He might want to see the six counties reunited, but wouldn't want blood spilled to do it.

The other performance you will remember is Arthur Shields as Padriac Pearse. By the way Shields and brother Barry Fitzgerald were in real life Ulster Protestants.

Ford concentrated on the nationalist part of the struggle and while The Plough and the Stars might be a bit too much like a photographed stage play it's still good drama. More Ford than O'Casey though.

Truncated Version of an O'Casey Classic

[l_rawjalaurence · 6/10 · 14 July 2013]

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS, represents the director's anti-imperialist stance against the ruling British in Ireland. Although political in tone, both films have been filtered through the classical Hollywood consciousness; they refer as much to American conflicts (e.g. the Civil War) as Irish conflicts, with a protagonist struggling for freedom against the colonial power, as well as against pro-colonial forces within his own people. THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS stars Barbara Stanwyck; much of the action has been rewritten from a woman's film perspective, showing her struggling to survive in a world dominated by rebellion, in which her husband (Preston Foster) is committed to the cause of freedom - so much so, in fact, that he neglects her. But Ford is too clever to make any judgment; although sympathizing with Stanwyck's character, he makes it clear that her husband has to fight on so as to preserve his own integrity, as well as that of his own country. THE INFORMER and THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS are both packed with Abbey Theatre actors, including Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields (who were both Protestant, by the way, rather than Catholic as portrayed in the film) and more; they provide local color, as well as vivid illustration of how ordinary people coped with the experience of rebellion. Sometimes we wonder whether they have been cast to show off their Oirishness - in other words, conform to Hollywood stereotypes of the Irish character (garrulous, full of songs and fond of drinking). This is especially true of Fitzgerald's Fluther Good, who seems to have little involvement in the film's main plot, yet nonetheless has the chance to show off his (non-existent) pugilistic abilities. Nonetheless the film still packs a punch, despite its short running-time.

Ford's Passion Project Ruined By Bad Casting, Lack of Focus

[boblipton · 5/10 · 3 November 2018]

Sean O'Casey's drama of the Easter Rising doesn't survive its transformation to the screen. Director John Ford was reputed to be so angry over front office interference on his passion project that he walked off and never returned.

While Joe August's lighting and the serio-comic performance of Barry Fitgerald are wonders to behold - he edged basically the same character a little more to the clown for The Quiet Man - something has gone desperately wrong with the movement between the interior scenes, where the play takes place and the exterior, where it's opened up. Given that Ford was working with his pet screenwriter Dudley Nichols, and a couple of titles explain what is going on, it looks like butchery to me. I'd guess the studio heads were concerned about losing the British market. As if they had ever expected this to play big in Blighty.

Barbara Stanwyck is also a problem here. While visually she is perfect, she can't sling the lingo, and her occasional attempts to do an Irish accent are pathetic. It's particularly awkward when the scene shifts from her to the Abbey Players.

a studio-wrecked travesty

[Howard_B_Eale · 21 March 2010]

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS is one of the darker chapters in John Ford's sound film career. A "dream" project for the director, it instead became a debacle very early on in its tumultuous production history.

Among other things: RKO wouldn't import the full cast of the stage version, leading Ford to cast Preston Foster and Barbara Stanwyck in roles which arguably needed to go to Irish nationals more familiar with everything from the complex subject matter to the accents they would use. The producers misunderstood the story completely, and not only insisted on re-shooting sequences explaining the marriage of Stanwyck and Foster's characters (with a different director), but inserted newsreel footage and atrocious documentary-style narration. Contrary to another comment here, Ford had _nothing_ to do with the insertion of the archival footage... which is actually from the _wrong_ battle: it's from 1921, not the Easter Rebellion of 1916 described in the play/film.

Ford's generally deft handling of comic and dramatic elements collapses here into a confusing mess, in large part because Ford's depression over the project led him into an alcoholic bender during production.

Possibly Ford's worst sound film, which can be filed next to his other unfortunate duds such as THE WORLD MOVES ON and WHEN WILLIE COMES MARCHING HOME.

To fully appreciate the movie, read about the events of 1916 before watching

[irisgouldianfinch · 7/10 · 28 June 2018]

I looked forward to watching "The Plough and the Stars" when I saw it listed on the schedule of the Talking Pictures cable channel here in the UK. I was impressed that many of the cast from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin appeared in the film. I was disappointed however by the screenplay and the filming. The Plough and the Stars tries to pay tribute to the Uprising, particularly by looking at its effects on the residents of one building. The movie shows its theatrical origins: its very stagey, and its evident that it was shot on a Hollywood backlot. I haven't read Seán O'Casey's original play, but I can see that the screenplay concentrated on the last two acts of the play, set during the Easter Rising, in April 1916. It's left to a few brief title cards to narrate that the events take place in Dublin during World War I. There's little information about what has led to the Rebellion: in the play the first two acts are set in November 1915, looking forward to the liberation of Ireland from centuries of British rule. The movie, like the play, focuses on the residents of a Dublin tenement house. There are some fine performances from the Abbey Theatre players. But the film is let down by telling too little about the historical events and the focus on Barbara Stanwyck's Nora Clitheroe and her appeals to her husband, Jack, not to join the fighting. Stanwyck tries her best but as other reviewers have noted, her Brooklyn accent is more apparent than her attempt at an Irish one. The 1930s fashions the women wear added to my feeling that the film's setting is more reminiscent of an Irish neighbourhood in 1930s New York rather than 1916 Dublin. I agree with the reviewers who have noted that the film gives little context for why Nora so desperately wants Jack to stay out of political activities she has burned the note that names him a commander. Her character comes off as a clingy young wife who isn't concerned by what is happening to Dublin and her country; she's consumed with her husband and her "own personal happiness". The script emphasises to the end that men do the fighting while the women love, then suffer. The conditions of ordinary life in Dublin are touched upon: poverty, alcoholism, disease, as in the death of the young girl from tuberculosis. The conflicts of Irish citizens over the destiny of their country aren't very deeply explored. People with different viewpoints are shown bickering, getting into fist fights in pubs and in the streets, and very little is revealed about the rebelling forces who take control of the post office, announce the forming of the Irish republic, and fight the British in doomed but legendary battles. I said to my husband when the post office was shown, "I've been there". I studied the events of the Uprising to appreciate Yeats' poem Easter 1916. I traveled to Dublin for the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday in 2004 and while I was there visited Kilmainham Gaol. Even though I used to have a poster of the Proclamation of the Republic on my wall and I could remember some of the signators, I was a little confused following the movie's portrayal of the Uprising. I thought Arthur Shields was playing James Connolly, but some reviewers said he's meant to be Patrick Pearse. I remembered however that Connolly was severely injured during the siege on the Post Office and was executed tied to a chair: Shields' character is injured and carried to his execution on a stretcher. I didn't know that there was looting during the fighting, and snipers on rooftops who tried to fight on despite the defeat of the Irish forces. I wish there were more revelations of how Dubliners reacted to the Uprising and the resulting retributions by the British. The film would have been much more powerful if it revealed more about the build up to the Uprising, more about the people who fought in it, and more about the conflicts of Nora, Jack, and their neighbours. It's a shame that the film attempts to make the events of 1916 and the people caught up in a turbulent moment of history a universal message about war, painted in gender roles of men doing the fighting and women paying the price in grief and sorrow.

Stanwyck is very strong, despite the accent

[davidmvining · 7/10 · 3 December 2021]

I think this is another movie like Seas Beneath where John Ford's time making it was so bad that he couldn't see the movie itself anymore. Based on a play by Sean O'Casey, The Plough and the Stars was supposed to be a cinematic adaptation of the play as it was and star the original Abbey Theater cast. Well, RKO forced him to hire Barbara Stanwyck and Preston Foster to lead the film (the rest of the cast mostly being the original theatrical cast), and they cut down on some of the political edges of the end product. I can see how Ford would see this as a dream project fall apart, and how that would be an incredibly difficult thing for him to take. It was a compromised vision. Well, here I am watching the film nearly eighty years later, and all I see is a pretty solid film, reminding me of Howard Hawks' Today We Live, another film from the 30s by a well-known director that has just gotten lost and discarded but didn't need to be.

Stanwyck and Foster by the Clitheroes, Nora and Jack. Newlyweds in 1916 Dublin, Nora has been keeping a secret from Jack that the Citizens Army, the army of Irish Socialists fighting English rule in Ireland, had offered him a leadership position, burning the letter brought a couple of weeks ago. She had extracted a promise from him some time before that he was done with the Army and would spend his life working and coming home to her every night. That comes crashing down when a messenger for the army comes to their door, carrying the same message again, and hands it directly to Jack. Jack feels a strong sense of patriotism and duty that forces him to turn against his promise to Nora and run out the door. He goes to a meeting to discuss potential plans for an uprising while Nora stays home, quietly waiting for her husband to either come back or word to come back of his death.

There's another side to this film, and it's a small collection of side characters who do end up really well integrated with the central story of Nora and Jack but start the film as largely a distraction. This group is led by Fluther (Barry Fitzgerald), a braggart and drunkard who speaks loudly of how he would join the army if he were younger while scooping up the remains of beer into a single glass and downing it. There's also Maggie (Una O'Connor), mother to Mollser (Bonita Greenville). Maggie is an older woman who encourages those around her, especially the older men, to join up. Finally there's Rosie (Erin O'Brien-Moore), a British sympathizer who will loudly sing "Hail Britannia" and curse those who join up with the Army. It's a motely crew, and they spend most of the early parts of the movie having borderline zany interactions that end with glasses of beer thrown into windows and, after the Easter Rising begins and Dublin descends into anarchy, some looting that honestly just feels wrong tonally.

On the one hand we have Nora fearing for the life of her husband as British troops descend on the post office where the Army has made its headquarters, and on the other we have this group of miscreants comically looting their own city. It's really my only big problem with the film, but it's definitely there. Fortunately, after the looting scene, the movie regains the focus it needs.

The revolution has gone terribly (locking themselves up in an urban building with no escape route and no large depot of supplies seems...questionable tactically), and some of the Army's men (including Jack) retreat to the roofs of the city, moving away from the post office and to snipe at the British troops below. The nighttime scenes look great, especially the shot of the one sniper being shot off the roof. Jack manages to get to his apartment building where all of our characters have gathered to hide from the violence outside as well as mourn the death of Mollser, who has died of consumption. The long scene that follows is a marvelously tense scene as several things that had been previously established all come to a head at once. The core is Nora's general distaste for Jack's choice to join up mixed with her immense relief at his return, along with Maggie's quiet sadness for her daughter, Rosie's insistence that all of this is wrong, and Fluther's bluster being diminished in the face of real violence and danger (but not enough to actually calm him completely). Then walk in the British troops, searching for the sniper (Jack) who disappeared off the roof nearby.

There's sadness, anger, and a complex juggle of the needs of a nation versus the needs of the family at play, and the movie never really comes to a conclusion, staying in the murky emotional reality of the story of a husband and wife in a tumultuous time.

I should also note Barbara Stanwyck. As time has gone on, I've grown to really like her as an actress. It really started with Anthony Mann's The Furies, but combined with her easy sexpot performance in Howard Hawks' Ball of Fire, I've found her a very talented woman from old Hollywood. Here she gives a really terrific performance as a woman constantly on edge and in near total melancholy about the inevitable death (as she sees it) of her husband. But, she can't really hold the Irish accent at all. It's off and on (mostly off), and I think that's what leads to people having called her miscast. She doesn't sound Irish, but you know what? She plays Nora really well.

The rest of the cast is good, though I find Foster a bit of a non-entity as Jack. The supporting cast, made up of interesting Irish character actors, is alternatively fun and can actually carry some emotional weight when necessary.

This isn't a hidden masterpiece, there's too much in the middle section that simply feels off for that, but it comes out as a solid piece of filmmaking. Ford apparently left the production at some point, needing assistants to finish it (probably explains "Assisted by Arthur Shields of the Abbey Theatre" credit under Ford's name on the film), but the end result is actually pretty solid. Anchored mostly by Stanwyck, this is a good little film that really deserves some reappraisal.

As we know, it takes rebellion to obtain freedom.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 27 August 2015]

Handsome looking but emotionally empty, this film version of Sean O'Casey's famous play is a cliff-notes version of its original source. The story of the Easter Rising of 1916 is dramatized, but much of the spirit is cut out of the script which reduces the play's four acts down to just under 70 minutes. A young married couple face tensions in both their marriage and in the future of their beloved homeland as rebel forces against the mother country put Ireland at odds with the monarchy. He's determined to obtain freedom, or die trying, and she'd rather he not even risk it. "It's a woman's nature to love just its a man's nature to fight, and nobody can help it more than the other", Barbara Stanwyck says as she comes to terms with husband Preston Foster's determination to fight for a free Ireland.

Something tells me, having not read the original play in its entirety, that Stanwyck's character wouldn't just stand by her man from the get-go, but fight with him as well. Stanwyck's character through most of the film seems to be on the side of just having her man home with her, and no real interest in the cause, which I can only guess is not true of the Irish women of this era. That was old Hollywood's way of keeping women in their place by not putting them out there at the front unless it was absolutely necessary to the plot.

As Barbara Stanwyck remains my favorite classic movie actress, I have been searching for this film for years, having seen pretty much everything else that has been available. Neither the old AMC nor TCM has seemed to have played this, so it is indeed a very rare film, and even collectors I've worked with over the years did not have this film. Like the same year's "A Message to Garcia", Stanwyck's casting seems odd, however, because her Brooklyn accent can't be disguised, and here, she slips in and out of her attempts at a very subtle Irish accent. She succeeded a few years later with a more consistent accent in "Union Pacific", but unfortunately, here, her participation is an obvious mistake. (I must mention, however, that attempting to do a Spanish accent in "A Message to Garcia" was even stranger...)

Preston Foster does much better as the hero, with excellent support by the perfectly cast Barry Fitzgerald and Una O'Connor. Fortunately, O'Connor screeches less here than in other movies, and when she does, it is for the cause, not because of the usual fear or determination to hold onto one of her adult offspring. Veteran character actresses Doris Lloyd and Mary Gordon have great bits at a scene where Stanwyck does finally take some sort of stand. Having seen a stage version of O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock", I can just imagine that this would be far more passionate in its original stage version than in this stream-lined movie which was made to fit double bills. The subject matter, especially coming from a country that had fought for its own freedom only 150 years before, seems more worthy of being dramatized than the treatment it got here.

Muddled adaptation of the Sean O'Casey play

[AlsExGal · 5/10 · 20 December 2022]

Set in Ireland during the 1916 Easter Rebellion, Barbara Stanwyck stars as Nora Clitheroe, the wife of Jack (Preston Foster), a former ranking member in the Irish underground. He's itching to get back into the fight, but he's promised his wife that his fighting days are behind him. Naturally, the call to arms becomes too strong, and as Jack heads back into the fray, Nora rages at his decision and the heartbreak of war.

Director John Ford basically disowned the finished film, claiming RKO had edited it into garbage. I don't think it's quite that bad, but it really isn't very good, either. Stanwyck is fairly awful, strident and struggling with her accent. Foster, who can be a compelling presence, is dull here. Brothers Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields, both making their first substantial appearances in an American movie, are what you'd expect. Fitzgerald's goofball character is meant to be the comic relief, but he's just irritating. The only performance that moved me at all was from Bonita Granville, as a young girl dreaming of a better life.

Barbara Stanwyck was 100% wrong for this film....and you wonder who thought it was a good idea to cast her in this film of the Easter Rebellion.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 4 August 2016]

John Ford made most of his films for Twentieth Century Fox and perhaps much of it was because the studio let the director do what he wanted. After all, he was a proved commodity--an Oscar-winning director with a great track record. But with this film he did for RKO, apparently Ford was NOT thrilled and even walked off...forcing the studio to finish the film without him due to creative differences. Ford apparently hated the final product.

I am not sure why Ford was so disenchanted with the project, but I would hazard to guess that at least some of his disgust was the decision to cast Barbara Stanwyck in the lead. Now I do not have anything against her...she was a fine actress. But the film is about Ireland and she sounds absolutely nothing like an Irish woman...nothing. Heck, Hattie McDaniel would have been about as convincing in this role! She couldn't even approximate the accent...and in most of the film she didn't seem to try. Her character was also extremely whiny...too much so. As for the other co-star, Preston Foster, he was much more convincing and was well cast. So for me, this was a HUGE strike against the movie at the onset.

When the film begins, you learn that Nora (Stanwyck) has hidden a letter that arrived for her husband, Jack (Foster). The letter was appointing him a leader in the Irish militia...and soon they would be involved in the infamous Easter Uprising. Well, Nora is NOT the patriotic sort and is actually rather selfish--and she later begs him not to join in the fighting and to reject his appointment. Jack is not about to do this, as he's a loyal patriot.

Much of the rest of the film is made up of the rebellion as well as its aftermath--most of which time Nora whines and complains and seems to care not one bit about her native land...which is pretty weird and pretty despicable. In fact, her character and performance were pretty awful and the film left me wanting to see her get killed or at least horse whipped. And, even more oddly, the film ends this way...with Nora whining and having no care about the deaths of others or her Republic. I have no idea WHAT the point of the film was...and I could see how audiences left confused and unsatisfied. A rather terrible film, actually...

Ford's "Plough & the Stars" ('36) -- a powerful period piece

[jdeureka · 8/10 · 31 May 2010]

If you like Ireland, Irish history & literature, the traditions of the Irish people & the ambiguous creation of the Irish nation -- what's not to like about this movie? Sure, now, it's more John Ford than Sean O'Casey. But what would you be expectin from John Ford at the height of his creative spirit -- four years before he filmed "Grapes of Wrath"? Almost everyone in this movie plays their part with pungent efficiency. It's old-fashioned acting of the best sort. As movie, this is much more cinema of ideas, of belief & revolution, of theater, of language & gesture & non-verbal communication -- than our contemporary cinema of special effects and technicolor sensations. This movie is political entertainment of a very fine order; with as much said by the words as by what is shown. But how many people alive now can relate to it with the potency it must of had back in the 1930s?

The studio should have given Ford a free hand

[JamesHitchcock · 5/10 · 31 January 2023]

John Ford is today primarily thought of as the director of Westerns, but these do not constitute the whole of his output. He was of Irish descent- his original name was John Feeney- and several of his films, including "The Plough and the Stars", reflect his interest in the affairs of his ancestral homeland. (Others include "The Informer", "The Quiet Man" and "The Rising of the Moon"; he was originally slated to direct "Young Cassidy" but had to withdraw owing to illness about three weeks into filming, and was replaced by Jack Cardiff, who was credited as director).

"The Plough and the Stars" is based on the play of the same name by Seán O'Casey. It is set against the background of the Easter Rising of 1916 when Irish Nationalists staged a rebellion against British rule in Ireland. (The title is derived from the "Starry Plough flag", a banner used by the nationalist movement). The central characters are Jack and Nora Clitheroe, a married couple who run a boarding house in Dublin. Jack is secretly a member of a nationalist militia, the Irish Citizen Army, and obeys their call when the Rising breaks out. Nora, however, is horrified; she loves Jack, and cannot bear the idea that he might be killed, even if he is fighting for a cause that he believes in. (She herself has always tried to keep aloof from politics).

Some reviewers on this board have been highly critical of Nora for not standing by her man and not standing by her country, but I feel that such reviewers miss the point of what O'Casey was trying to do. Although he was himself a supporter of the nationalist cause and had been a member of the ICA, he was not trying to write a narrowly partisan, propagandist play. He was well aware of the complexities of the political situation and of the fact that not everybody in the Ireland of 1916 had supported the Rising. In that year many Irishmen were in the British Army fighting in the First World War against Germany. (All of them volunteers- conscription was never applied in Ireland, unlike mainland Britain). Many of these men were Irish Unionists who supported the Union with Britain, but many were nationalists who nevertheless believed in the justice of the Allied cause and who believed that the best way to achieve Home Rule was to work with the British rather than against them. There were also many like Nora who held no strong political views but who recoiled from violence and from the possibility that their loved ones might die in a pointless uprising. O'Casey realised that any play about the Rising, if it were to be honest, needed to take account of all these viewpoints.

Ford wanted to make the film with the Irish cast who had appeared in the original production of the play at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. The studio RKO, however, insisted on using established American stars for the two leading roles in order to boost the film's box-office appeal, so Barbara Stanwyck and Preston Foster were cast as Nora and Jack. RKO also wanted to make changes to the plot in order to tone down O'Casey's left-wing views. (These views had made the play controversial in Ireland itself; when it was first performed in 1926 it led to a riot when conservative, middle-class nationalists in the audience took offence). His clashes with the studio led to Ford walking away and disowning the project, complaining that the studio had ruined the whole thing. The film was completed by another director, although Ford retained the directing credit. (There was no Alan Smithee pseudonym available in 1936).

Stanwyck's performance has been criticised, but although her Irish accent leaves much to be desired, she puts her lines across clearly and conveys the pathos of Nora's position. I didn't care much for Foster, however; his accent is no better and he often seems difficult to understand. The rest of the cast are something of a mixed bag, and I couldn't see the point of Barry Fitzgerald's Fluther Good, a drunken stage Irishman, unless it was to provide some sort of comic relief. It is a long time since I last saw O'Casey's play, but I remember it as a powerful piece of drama. We cannot know what Ford's film would have been like had the studio given him a free hand, but I suspect it would have been better than the film we actually have. 5/10.

The starry plough

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 18 March 2024]

During the 1930s, RKO would occasionally produce what were called prestige films. Some of these were more lavishly budgeted than others, and they were a type of art film of the day, meant to raise awareness about a particular set of social issues. Ten years earlier Irish playwright Sean O'Casey had a success with his play The Plough and the Stars, which Hollywood director John Ford had wanted to turn into a motion picture.

Ford had achieved success a year earlier at RKO with a drama called THE INFORMER- which earned actor Victor McLaglen an Oscar. Therefore, it seemed as if adapting O'Casey's play with Ford at the helm would be a natural choice for a follow-up.

At the heart of the story were events surrounding the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, which occurred during the First World War. Information at the beginning of the film tells us that while some Irishmen were off fighting in the war as part of the English military, a group of Irishmen back on home soil were waging a war of a different kind for freedom from England.

O'Casey's play is divided into four acts, with the first two acts leading up to the rebellion of the Irish Citizen Army (a paramilitary outfit comprised of unionized tradesmen); and the second half of the play covering the Rising itself. For the most part Ford's film follows the same narrative structure.

Interestingly, O'Casey ran into censorship problems when staging his play at the Abbey Theater in Dublin. He was forced to make compromises such as eliminating a prostitute character and toning down some of the more radical political elements, though much of the violence remains. Because of the alterations O'Casey had made, there was less need for the production code office in Hollywood to suggest changes.

Perhaps the biggest battles Ford had were convincing RKO to use a lot of the original performers from the play, as many of them had never been in a film before. One actor, Barry Fitzgerald who went on to make other films with Ford, had already been in a film but certainly did not have box office appeal in America...of course, that would change when he became a popular character actor in Hollywood pictures during the 1940s.

One condition in allowing Ford to use the Irish actors was studio execs insisting that at least one proven box office name carry the picture, two if possible. When MGM refused to loan Spencer Tracy for the lead male role and Warner Brothers similarly refused to loan Pat O'Brien, RKO decided to cast Preston Foster who was already under contract. And for the lead female role, freelancer Barbara Stanwyck was hired.

To Stanwyck's credit she applies just the right amount of brogue without overdoing it, though occasionally her Brooklyn accent seeps through. She renders a highly sensitive and engaging performance as a wife who is determined to keep her husband (Foster) from getting involved with the rebellion. During parts of the story she is criticized by the other working class women in the neighborhood for coddling her man and trying to prevent him from doing what everyone else is doing to obtain freedom.

There is much in the way of explosions, gunfire and rocks flying through windows. In fact there are so many destructive acts on screen that art director Van Nest Polglase's beautiful outdoor set on the RKO backlot is nearly ruined by the film's end. Yes, this provides a great deal of realism, even if it feels like Ford is unable to reign in some of the more dramatic aspects and provide any sort of subtlety. Also, there are many shadowy compositions since the action takes place at night with fires providing key sources of light; these atmospheric touches help a good deal of the action to feel believable.

Unfortunately the film was not as successful as the stage play had been. This would be one of Ford's last pictures at the studio, though some of his independently produced efforts in the late 40s would still be distributed through RKO. Watching the film yesterday on St. Patrick's Day, as an Irish American, I did feel a sense of pride about the characters depicted on screen and what their actions signified.

The Plough and the Stars review

[JoeytheBrit · 5/10 · 16 May 2020]

The harnessing of crudely stereotypical Irish characters to the tale of the Easter uprising of 1916 makes for forgettable viewing. It departed so drastically from director John Ford's vision that he stormed off the set, leaving his assistant directors to finish the film. Barbara Stanwyck tries her best, but her task is hopeless as she's given nothing to do other than beg rebel husband Preston Foster to lay down his arms.

Better than expected, poetic and visually striking

[brendangcarroll · 8/10 · 18 July 2017]

Made as a follow up to the hugely successful THE INFORMER, John Ford's much maligned screen version of THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS has long been regarded as one of his worst films.

I finally saw this film tonight, thanks to the wonderful Talking Pictures TV Channnel here in England.

My Iriish-born father loathed this film because he said it was a travesty of O'Casey's play and just a Hollywood fiction of the Easter uprising.

Well I read all the reviews here expecting the worst.

But, I was amazed to watch a print of this film that bore NO relation to that described in the reviews posted here! There was no newsreel footage interpolated, no unfortunate added narration whatsoever and no extra footage by other directors to explain the marriage of Stanwyck & Foster's marriage! What gives? What I saw was obviously a genuine John Ford film, beautifully directed and photographed, with many of his trademark camera set ups, close ups and scene compositions. His usual flair for narrative and the many subtle visual trademarks did not indicate a hatchet job by RKO.

The whole thing had an understated poetic quality and the pace and fluidity were striking.

So what was I looking at? A pre-release print that had somehow survived in the UK but not in the RKO archives in LA? It was certainly no turkey and even Stanwyck impressed me - her lack of accent did not matter, because Ford (in this print at least) let her face do all the acting for her. And she was great! Barry Fitzgerald was clearly doing a warm up for his role in THE QUIET MAN, but the remaining Abbey Players were all fine and I believe acted large portions of O'Casey's dialogue intact. I do not have a copy of the play to make a comparison but will seek it out.

Una O'Connor showed what a fine dramatic actress she was in Ireland before she found fame in Hollywood. Even Preston Foster demonstrated an impressive restraint and was highly impressive.

Ford did not have Max Steiner for this film (as he had on THE INFORMER and THE LOST PATROL) but Roy Webb did a fine job with a highly dramatic and vivid music score throughout.

But what of the source print? Are there really two extant versions of this film? If so, I think I watched the long lost "Director's Cut" tonight! How exciting!

A story of the Easter Rebellion in Ireland in 1916

[CR-4 · 10/10 · 3 October 1998]

I saw this movie over 35 years ago and the title remained in my memory. Some of the scenes are still so clear in my mind that I guess that the film accomplished a sort of immortality in me.