6th Time and Still Enjoying It

There’s not many films I’ve watched twice but Ryan’s Daughter I can watch time and time again. I first saw it when it first came out in 1970, going to the cinema in Glasgow with my girlfriend at the time and I remember being spellbound by the scenery, the acting and in particular, by Sarah Miles.

Strangely enough, I was thinking about Ryan’s Daughter only the other day as I sorted out all our DVD’s and actually remember being disappointed that I didn’t have a copy of this epic film, made by that epic filmmaker, David Lean. But I’ve seen it now, six times in all, four of them in the cinema and I’m still in awe, particularly as I’ve researched some of the background to the film and have become aware of the all the problems and issues between the actors and the director. It’s a wonder the film was ever finished with Christopher Jones (he plays the British Army Major) and David Lean having frequent arguments and the production crew waiting around, reputedly for a year, for the weather to get to the stage where they could film the storm scenes.

The film is mainly set in southern Ireland and although some of the beach scenes were shot in South Africa, most of the film is set around the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry. The scenery, in particular the rocky shoreline and the storms which lash the coastline, are amazing and would draw anyone to visit that part of Ireland and although you might think that it looks a fairly remote area on a map, there is quite a tourist infrastructure set up with tourist offices, hotels and the like. This can only be for the reasons that (a) Ryan;s Daughter was shot there, (b) it’s the most westerly part of the British Isles and (c) the beaches are magnificent, albeit a trifle windswept.

However, back to the film and my lusting after Sarah Miles. Well, I was only 19 at the time and I was on a roll having just seen The Graduate and an utterly desirable Anne Bancroft, but it was the fact that although I fancied Sarah Miles like mad, bizarrely, I fancied her even more after Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles character) had her hair shaved and was tarred and feathered for allegedly informing on the IRA. Weird!

The years pass and we all move on although none as far as Ms Miles, who appeared regularly in the tabloid newspapers in the late 70’s and 80’s and acknowledged, supported and even encouraged the various stories which appeared. One of the strangest was that she regularly drank her own urine, but as Ghandi and Nero did it (apparently), who am I to decry the practice.

Affairs with Lord Olivier, Steven Spielberg, marriages to the same guy (Robert Bolt) twice and a dead lover in her hotel bedroom all kept Ms Miles regularly in the news. Those were the days.