A few words about... Ryan's Daughter

Robert Wise's "The Andromeda Strain" showed a dead woman's bare breast, and that was rated G!

I still think that Patty's idea is very plausible. The movie was improperly rated (looking for a bigger audience than just adults), and might have turned off a lot of people because of this.

No. The MPAA in 1970 was nothing like the rigid MPAA of today. Breasts were not considered the taboo objects they are now.

It didn't happen!

Okay, maybe there was hysteria at PattyFraser's theater, but that's as far it went! There was no national controversy over nudity in Ryan's Daughter's or its rating in 1970. Critics were too busy attacking David Lean over other things.

Let's not get distracted by putting too much emphasis on one brief shot. Lean felt he needed to punctuate Rosey Ryan's passion with an exposed breast. It tells us that she is discovering "what more there is." She's also getting in over her head. There's a bigger movie around it.


Is this a trick to make us start listing nude scenes? The answer is, Numerous. Brief nudity was everywhere in the late 1960s and early 1970s, even in G or M / GP rated films. Nobody made an issue out of it like they do now. With some effort I seem to recall --

1966 The Professionals (Marie Gomez as Chiquita)
1967 In Like Flint
1968 Marlowe (Rita Moreno)
1968 Romeo and Juliet (15-year-old Olivia Hussey)
1969 The Gypsy Moths (Deborah Kerr! and Sheree North)
1969 Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Pamela Franklin)
1969 Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (Katherine Ross)
1970 Little Big Man (wives in the teepee)
1970 A Man Called Horse
1970 Paint Your Wagon (Jean Seberg breast-feeding)
1971 Andromeda Strain
1971 Elizabeth R (Glenda Jackson in BBC mini series)
1971 Walkabout (Jenny Agutter)
1972 Bad Company (cut from the DVD)

and many other films.

Audiences thoroughly enjoyed Ryan's Daughter. They didn't complain about any of these things. Only the critics did. Critics need to justify their nasty little jobs, so they create "issues" where there aren't any, really.

I maintain Ryan's Daughter didn't deserve all the negative criticism. It was lyrical and romantic when most films were harsh and realistic. The story is character-driven rather than plot-driven or action-driven, but its emotional resonance and pictorial beauty supports the size and scope and length of the production. It lasts as long as it needs to to tell its story. It takes place during a time of sexual and political oppression in Ireland; the Irish revolution is therefore both relevant and appropriate. The characterizations are all remarkable. We are made to feel as if we really know these people. It's also very dry, as in British, which means that some of its subtleties may not have connected with American audiences.

As to budget, well, if John Ford could build a Cornish street to get the right compositions in How Green Was My Valley, David Lean can build an Irish street in Ryan's Daughter. The cost is not the point, and it's not something audiences should be conscious of.



Yeah, "A tree is a tree and a rock is a rock / shoot it in Griffith Park." Bean counters are an unimaginative and anti-creative crowd. If David Lean needed to build a ship interior with camera angle ports for his proposed version of The Bounty, Calley should have approved it. It's not unusual to build a new set for which fully half the film takes place. Nobody complained when Stanley Kubrick built a spaceship interior inside a centrifuge and a centrifuge to house it for 2001. Nobody complained when Joshua Logan built a collapsable mining town street on top of trenches for Paint Your Wagon because the story demanded it. Nobody complained when Clint Eastwood built a new western town street for High Plains Drifter. It would have been cheaper and easier to shoot on any one of a dozen existing western town streets (like Old Tucson or the sets at WB and Universal), but he had to build a new one. Nobody complained when Robert Wise built a lab set interior for Andromeda Strain instead of shooting in an actual lab location. So David Lean's request was neither extravagant nor unusual. Calley's problem is that he was listening to critics instead of paying attention to the requirements of the production. His betrayal of David Lean is a black eye on his career.

Richard, you do want to blame the debacle of Ryan's Daughter on the critics. The critics were perhaps unnecessarily harsh on the movie, but it's the lack of audience that made the movie a failure, not the critics. And movie critics have never held the power over an audience that theater critics have, and Pauline had the least power of all, writing for an elite magazine that most people would not own or read.

After its initial premiere and "roadshow" period, Ryan's Daughter did not do well across the country, and did not pay for itself. There must have been many people in the audience of those initial showings that did not like the movie, and told their friends not to go to it.

Not exactly true.

After reading the critical reception, MGM became afraid the public would not support a widespread release, so they only released it in a limited number of venues, as if they were trying to write off a loss before they had one. After the initial roadshow release, Ryan's Daughter became hard to find. Most neighborhoods didn't get the film at all. I caught up with it again on Long Island, but I had to ride the train to get there because it was only playing in one theater in Syosset, about 30 miles away.

Again, audience response was overwhelmingly positive. Word-of-mouth was positive, if not enthusiastic.

The critics went on a warpath, however, led by Pauline Kael. At the same time, she led a charge to discredit Orson Welles, but that's another story. I'm not at all certain critics can make or break a film, but they do influence studio decisions, there's no denying it.

I don't believe that's true Richard. Perhaps you have a source for your information?

Ryan's Daughter was booked -- that IMDB figure of $14.5 million in rentals shows that it was booked, and at a lot more places than just roadshow premiere theaters.

And there it died -- it simply didn't run. This is because of audiences, not studios, and not critics.

I was there at the time and keeping abreast of the film's situation.

I'm not convinced that statistic is complete or accurate, but if it's accurate, it reflects the earnings of a very small release.

The conclusion you arrive at from that statistic is erroneous, but go ahead and believe whatever pleases you the most, DeeF.

It's okay with me.

DeeF seems to have a personal vendetta against the movie.

There are many films that did not financially perform well and are now considered classics.
I consider "Ryans Daughter" a classic. I've watched it twice in the space of a week.
I actually bought 12 copies to send to friends who have been waiting forever for one their favorite films.

I don't have a personal vendetta against the movie at all. I bought the DVD 10 days or so before it was released (tomorrow?), and I pronounced it superb, and called for Robert Harris's review of it. His review of the disk (this thread) came after mine.

I'm actually looking for a cause of its original lack of success other than, the critics didn't like it. I think Patty's idea that it may have been rated wrong, may have contributed to its downward spiral of audiences.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...Ryans+Daughter

How could the movie gross 14.5 Millions if MGM was so defensive regarding the release? Anyway Stephen Silverman in his book on Lean insists that the film made a profit (though it must have been small. I've found a cost of 14 Millions for DAUGHTER and a rental of 13.4 Millions for North America. Add to this at least the same amount from foreign markets and the film probably just made it.

Frankly this doesn't make sense at all. What has political oppression of the Irish people to do with MADAME BOVARY?

Dave Kehr reviews the disk in today's NYTimes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/movies/07dvd.html

I just got my copy from Best Buys in my hot little hands. It's a title that I have waited for for a long time but had been afraid would not been released, for whatever reason. Probably has to do with waiting so long for Far From the Madding Crowd--after a while skepicism sets in.

Can't wait to watch it. Thanks for this link, Dee. I especially like the part where he says you almost think hi-def has already arrived.

You're welcome Patty! I think the picture (on Ryan's Daughter DVD) is the best in my entire collection -- it's the best DVD I own, certainly of a classic film, and it's better than a lot of recent films on DVD too!

Enjoy!

Is this a good blind buy? I think I'll get it. I like Lean's other films.

Absolutely worth a blind buy. Beautiful DVD. As Robert Harris has said, the documentaries could have been a little better.

Compared to other talking head featurettes from the same DVD producer, I thought these were much better than we've been seeing lately. The integration of the contemporaneous interviews and on-set footage was relatively well done, and there was enough of such footage available to make it possible. There was non-trivial input from all of the right people either from archival sources or via the new interviews. I found them much more engaging than the featurettes on the Lawrence of Arabia Anniversary Edition. On the other side of the coin, there is nothing quite as comprehensive as the "Archives of Arabia" DVD-ROM feature on the Ryan's Daughter DVD, and the RD commentary and featurettes have a lot of overlap since they were largely derived from the same interviews.

Regards,

Received my copy of Ryans Daughter from the beaver today. Only seen the first 10 minutes but you'd swear Blu Ray arrived early.

Transfer of the year

Re: A few words about... Ryan's Daughter

Are there any plans for a BLU RAY releas of this exquisite film?

Re: A few words about... Ryan's Daughter

That would be SO WONDERFUL for RYANS DAUGHTER to come out on Blue Ray. It would be transfer of the year!!!