The most interesting theme of this very outstanding and typical dark Irish drama is the multitude of double personalities. James Cagney is number one, of course, a respectable surgeon and professor at the university on one hand and leading an underground war with many murders on the orther. Don Murray enters a pacifist, having learned the hard way in the first world war the dreadful self-destructive futility of being a soldier, refusing to kill any more, but he is transformed to yet another fanatic and killer - and very logically so. When the crisis comes he is faced by the fact that he has only one choice - and accepts it and walks the whole line.
And then there is Glynis Johns, wonderful as always, as a bar maid luring any man to get into her, being wholly on the freedom fighter side, but then, when the crisis comes, melting and surrendering to her very human and female weakness. Dana Wynter, on the other hand, stays cool, sees through it all and remains rigorous, - and that's why she is of no psychological interest.
All the other actors are superb as well, Cyril Cusack as the poet-soldier, Richard Harris in a very early performance spoiling it all by rowdy mistakes, Michael Redgrave as head of the Irish rebel army but callously political, all enjoying a terrific and memorable dialogue, that is sustained in excellence throughout. They could have brought Michael Collins in it as well, but you can't have everything. Wlliam Alwyn's impressing music does the rest, with a truly inspired cinematography at that - many sceneries recall similar unforgettable moments in "Odd Man Out", another timeless variation on the same complex problem of the necessity of fidelity to the cause at any cost - but at what price? In the end its inhuman absurdity always has outgrown all reasonable acceptability.
And then there is Glynis Johns, wonderful as always, as a bar maid luring any man to get into her, being wholly on the freedom fighter side, but then, when the crisis comes, melting and surrendering to her very human and female weakness. Dana Wynter, on the other hand, stays cool, sees through it all and remains rigorous, - and that's why she is of no psychological interest.
All the other actors are superb as well, Cyril Cusack as the poet-soldier, Richard Harris in a very early performance spoiling it all by rowdy mistakes, Michael Redgrave as head of the Irish rebel army but callously political, all enjoying a terrific and memorable dialogue, that is sustained in excellence throughout. They could have brought Michael Collins in it as well, but you can't have everything. Wlliam Alwyn's impressing music does the rest, with a truly inspired cinematography at that - many sceneries recall similar unforgettable moments in "Odd Man Out", another timeless variation on the same complex problem of the necessity of fidelity to the cause at any cost - but at what price? In the end its inhuman absurdity always has outgrown all reasonable acceptability.