Ryan's Daughter (1970/I)

Director:

David Lean

Writer:

Robert Bolt (writer)

Release Date:

17 December 1970 (West Germany)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

A story of love...set against the violence of rebellion

Plot:

World War I seems far away from Ireland's Dingle peninsula when Rosy Ryan Shaughnessy goes horseback...

Plot Keywords:

Father | Village | Pub | Gun | Officer

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 8 wins & 19 nominations

Cast

Robert Mitchum	...	Charles Shaughnessy
Trevor Howard	...	Father Collins
Christopher Jones	...	Randolph Doryan
John Mills	...	Michael
Leo McKern	...	Thomas Ryan
Sarah Miles	...	Rosy Ryan
Barry Foster	...	Tim O'Leary
Marie Kean	...	Mrs. McCardle
Arthur O'Sullivan	...	Mr. McCardle
Evin Crowley	...	Maureen
Douglas Sheldon	...	Driver
Gerald Sim	...	Captain
Barry Jackson	...	Corporal
Des Keogh	...	Lanky private
Niall Toibin	...	O'Keefe
Philip O'Flynn	...	Paddy
Donal Neligan	...	Maureen's boyfriend
Brian O'Higgins	...	Const. O'Connor
Niall O'Brien	...	Bernard
Owen Sullivan	...	Joseph
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Emmet Bergin	...	Sean (uncredited)
May Cluskey	...	Storekeeper (uncredited)
Annie D'Alton	...	Old woman (uncredited)
Pat Layde	...	Policeman (uncredited)
Ed O'Callaghan	...	Bernard (uncredited)

Directed by
David Lean

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Robert Bolt		writer

Produced by
Anthony Havelock-Allan	....	producer
Roy Stevens	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Maurice Jarre

Cinematography by
Freddie Young

Film Editing by
Norman Savage

Production Design by
Stephen B. Grimes		(as Stephen Grimes)

Art Direction by
Roy Walker

Set Decoration by
Josie MacAvin

Costume Design by
Jocelyn Rickards

Makeup Department
Charles E. Parker	....	makeup artist (as Charles Parker)
A.G. Scott	....	hair stylist
Eric Allwright	....	makeup artist (uncredited)

Production Management
Douglas Twiddy	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Charles Frend	....	second unit director
Michael Stevenson	....	assistant director
Roy Stevens	....	second unit director: storm
Pedro Vidal	....	assistant director
Jonathan Burrows	....	third assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Peter Dukelow	....	constructor
Eddie Fowlie	....	property master
Derek Irvine	....	assistant art director

Sound Department
John Bramall	....	sound recordist
Ernie Grimsdale	....	sound editor
Gordon K. McCallum	....	sound mixer
Winston Ryder	....	sound editor
John Hayward	....	sound re-recording mixer (uncredited)
Michael Hickey	....	sound (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Robert MacDonald	....	special effects

Stunts
Vic Armstrong	....	stunts (uncredited)
Jack Cooper	....	stunts (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Denys N. Coop	....	camera operator: second unit (as Denys Coop)
Ernest Day	....	camera operator
Robert Huke	....	camera operator: second unit (as Bob Huke)
Bernie Prentice	....	chief electrician
Roy Rodhouse	....	chief electrician
Doug Byers	....	electrician (uncredited)
Jim Dawes	....	grip (uncredited)
Robert Willoughby	....	special still photographer (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Tony Lawson	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Maurice Jarre	....	conductor
Eric Tomlinson	....	music recordist

Other crew
Phyllis Crocker	....	continuity
Eddie Fowlie	....	location manager
William O'Kelly	....	production liaison
Ron Bareham	....	assistant accountant (uncredited)
Al Burgess	....	location manager (uncredited)
Julian Holloway	....	voice dubbing: Christopher Jones (uncredited)
John Trehy	....	production accountant (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Faraway Productions

Distributors

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1970) (USA) (theatrical)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1974) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• Chapel Distribution (1999) (Australia) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1970) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Neue Visionen Filmverleih (????) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (199?) (USA) (VHS) (pan/scan)
• Vídeo Arte (Brazil) (VHS)

Other Companies

• Lee Lighting  grip and lighting equipment

Also Known As:

Michael's Day (UK) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for a sex scene.

Runtime:

195 min (general release version) | 206 min (roadshow/DVD version)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Mono (35 mm optical prints) | 4-Track Stereo (35 mm magnetic prints)

Certification:

UK:15 (video rating) | UK:AA (original rating) | Australia:PG | Singapore:M18 | Iceland:16 | West Germany:16 (f) | USA:R (re-rating) (1996) | New Zealand:M (special edition) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:11 | USA:GP (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Bridges of Ross, County Clare, Ireland

Company:

Faraway Productions

Trivia:

John Mills was the first actor cast in the film; he happened to be vacationing in Rome when Lean and Bolt began developing the project. Lean (who lived in Venice at the time) met Mills in Rome and offered him the role of the village idiot; Mills accepted, though he remarked that he felt the role was "typecasting".

Goofs:

Anachronisms: As he is driving Major Doryan to the camp, the corporal asks him if he had been in the Second Battle of the Marne. The Second Battle of the Marne was fought in July and August of 1918 near the end of WWI while events in Ryan's Daughter are set in 1916 not long after the Easter Rising.

Quotes:

Charles Shaughnessy: You're awful young.
Rosy Ryan: Aye, and that's a hanging matter, isn't it?
Charles Shaughnessy: No, it's -
[puts hand on Rosy's shoulder; uneasy pause]
Charles Shaughnessy: No, it's not a hanging matter to be young... but maybe it should be for an old man to take the youth away from a young girl. Especially a man like me and a girl like you. Rose, you were meant for the wide world, not this place, not this. Me - I was born for it.
Rosy Ryan: You... don't want me, then?
Charles Shaughnessy: Don't want...
[the two embrace]

Movie Connections:

Edited into Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)

Human longing for life, bare and simple on the screen

I love this movie. Saw it again last night on the big, wide screen at the Astor, from a beautiful new print. There is much to deserve love: the artistry of the film making; unspeakably fine cinematography; superb use of music and sound (hearing nothing but the wind in the trees during the forest scene is breathlessly sensual); and major and minor characters who each in their own way reflect the eternal enigma of human longing for life and transcendence. The film's evocation of human lives caught up in the inexorable forces of nature and history at this particular moment and place is profoundly arresting. There's a timelessness about this movie which makes the criticisms I've heard - about miscasting, stiff acting and the like - melt away into irrelevance, or even shows them to be virtues. I love the way the film maintains narrative integrity but has a foreordained, mythical quality as well: the overwhelming, all-penetrating power of nature and fate seems to make the human doings at once piercingly real and immediate, yet disconnected, almost surreal. But the touches of humour and sharp, immediate visual detail (often wittily drawn from the visual history of paintings and caricatures of village life) save us from any kind of authorial portent or angst: the greatest wonder of this artful work is that there is nothing between us and the story, except perhaps the icy whip of the ocean wind gainst our faces. The range of characters both in kind and in how we experience them is enlivening - from the formidably down to earth Father Collins, to the captivatingly tragic and symbolic figure of Doryan. And Michael the retarded angel is the ultimate figure of grace.