Girl with Green Eyes

source: Girl with Green Eyes

I'm drawn to B&W films of the 60s so i was anticipating an enjoyable film (although it made the title a bit ironic). They often have that crisp cinematography and high contrast lighting. The story is familiar: young girl falls in love with and older married man. Like that ever works haha. The music was a little strange at times. It lacked prosody and detracted from the film IMO. Neither of the lead actors were extremely attractive but they made the characters likable. Julian Glover was a pleasant surprise. He usually played refined villains and Malachi wasn't far from it. I understand this was a rom-dram but it lacked the passion of a classic like Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice or even Jerry Maguire. The script was flat, the actors were talented but didn't really seem to care. Redgrave added a little of what was lacking but she couldn't compensate enough. I enjoyed Peter Finch in Flight of the Phoenix and Network but his performance as Malachi didn't seem to showcase his talent. It's a sad story that could have been produced with more panache than it was given.

Dublin in the early sixties as photographed by Manny Wynn looks very picturesque to visit but was probably no fun for a young woman to actually live in (it probably still isn't). This adaptation by Edna O'Brien of her novella 'The Lonely Girl' (1962) benefits enormously from two attractive leads, and compares interestingly with similar subject matter depicted in 'Love in the Afternoon' (1957) and later viewed through the twin prisms of nostalgia and modern sexual politics in 'An Education' (2009).

Rita Tushingham, the it girl of British cinema in the 60's (she made a few pics w/Richard Lester) stars as a young Irish lass who falls in love w/a separated writer played by Peter Finch. Shot in beautiful black & white on Irish locales, this sobering romance hits all the right notes when a love affair sounds good via the heart but makes no sense in the head. Look for Lynn Redgrave (Vanessa's sister) as Rita's roommate & Julian Glover, who's still acting strong (he played one of the maesters on Game of Thrones), as one of Finch's friends.

In 2020, this is dull. It may well have been interesting in its day. The acting was fine, but how many times do we need to see a young girl in a romance with a middle age married guy? Not interesting at all.

Seeing this film after 40-years reminded me how good Peter Finch was – just about the most worldly, in control guy you could hope to see on the screen. He seemed to get better looking as he got older, although he showed every one of his years. Rita Tushingham got all the raves at the time, and she was a unique presence around the early 60's; it's easy to see why she had an impact on the critics, she had a look with those big eyes and mobile features – she seemed to literally devour life in her early roles. Set in Ireland, Kate Brady (Rita Tushingham), a young country girl experiencing life for the first time in the city, has an affair with a much older man: a writer, Eugene Gaillard (Peter Finch). However, there are problems; he doesn't want to get too involved after a failed marriage, and she has inhibitions due to a suspicious father and her upbringing as a strict Roman Catholic. This was Desmond Davis first film as director, and possibly he was influenced by the French New Wave where everything had the feeling it was photographed by accident with plenty of sharp cutting. Some of the mood changes in the film are also a bit sudden as well. When Kate's father and friends arrive from the village to save her from Eugene, the film gets an attack of the John Fords with the whole sequence treated as broad comedy with even broader Irish characters. However there is assurance with the way the scenes of Kate and Eugene are handled. Kate although sensitive, is outspoken and often at odds with the older Eugene, she is a strong character and not as naive as he seems to think she is. Eugene makes allowances for Kate's youth, but is inclined to avoid confrontation – their exchanges are often intense, but also breezy and witty, with the odd insight thrown in. The bedroom scenes were quite frank for the times, even if they are of the sheets around the shoulders variety. John Addison's score has a wistfulness that portends the end of the affair, a sentiment echoed in the script. At one point Eugene observes, "There's no always in human relations … people die, change, outgrow their best friends, nothing's permanent". Awkward touches aside, this is still an engaging film. It has two charismatic stars; a touch of sadness and a life-goes-on ending that feels about right.

Lovely, lyrical, bittersweet romance with young Rita Tushingham as a simple, convent-reared shop girl in Ireland who forms a relationship with a much older man, an intellectual, worldly agnostic (and married, but separated), living in isolation on a farm, writing books, in a finely wrought performance by Peter Finch. Tushingham and her chatterbox roommate, nicely played by Lynn Redgrave, casually meet on Finch's farm. Tushingham finds him attractive, with age difference no object, and invites him to tea in the city. Finch, somewhat world weary and wary of getting himself into an affair with a young, innocent girl, succumbs to her persistence and after a few meetings they consummate their relationship tenderly in scenes of gentle mutual affection. But, eventually, with family and priest strongly admonishing her for her "adultery" and ultimately Finch's withdrawal, Tushingham moves to England and finds relationships with men her own age and philosophically accepts the end of one, memorable phase of her life and the beginning of another. But this is not a plot-driven film – it's all character. As a sagacious film critic said a long time ago of another actress in another film (Audrey Hepburn in "A Nun's Story"), the theater is all in her face and it's Tushingham's wonderfully wistful performance, all manifested in those big, expressive eyes, that is the central and salient feature of this fine film, and which gives it its special quality. Marc Feldman 3-8-2005

I ordered this on video through my overseas mailing service and it was easy to get a hold of to rent. Starring Rita Tushingham and Peter Finch, and based upon a novel by Edna O'Brien. My mail order contact told me he was one of Rita Tushingham's old boyfriends, which impressed me very much and for some reason made me biased toward liking the film. The film is set in Dublin and the Irish countryside nearby, where the people are, shall we say, strict about certain matters. Tushingham plays an impressionable young girl bored with her life at home on an Irish farm. She moves to Dublin and shares a flat with a best friend (wonderfully played by Lyn Redgrave). She meets and becomes attracted to Finch's sophisticated author. They have a very touching romance, much to the chagrin of the local Irish louts who consider the pair as deeply suspicious and sinners in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church. Girl With Green Eyes was shot on location in Ireland and has a wonderful feeling for the people even when they are being intolerant and brutish. Tushingham and Finch are both appealing and bring a wonderful reality to their parts. The fate of their romance is left up in the air as Finch decides to go back to his wife and Tushingham refusing to go back to live on her father's farm, set on living her own life. In between, their relationship is portrayed with a great amount of tenderness and it is a lovely film for those of us who are romantics at heart. Peter Finch is photographed in a particularly flattering way. He looks spectacularly handsome in this, with a swathe of grey hair and a face that has seen a lot of living. And what a marvellous voice he had, it is totally unlike any other. And lo and behold, he was also an Australian. 'Girl with Green Eyes' is a small but precious gem to be treasured and absolutely recommended if you're feeling less pre-occupied with matters of the mind, and more with matters of the heart.

Girl with Green Eyes seems typical of the period of British "Kitchen-Sink" drama films (I saw it as the 2nd part of a double bill with The Leather Boys and the theme being Rita Tushingham performances, though this is dialed down a little from that turn), and that's what's good but not terribly memorable about it all. It's realistic in some of the basic character interactions, though it has a bouncier/more emotionally-cued up score than the material should have, if that makes sense. It seems like a minor point but Desmond Davis clearly wanted to get a lot of emotional/romantic/tragic pull out of the music by John Addison, and it may have been too much for this lot of realism (how typical this is by the way, it's produced by Tony Richardson). The story is actually an Irish-Kitchen-Sink movie, though with a couple of British touches: a young girl in Dublin, who originally was from a fairly lower-class farm that was highly religious but working *very* Irish class all the same, is working at a bookstore and finds that there's an author that she would like to meet along with her friend/roommate Baba. Peter Finch is this man, and soon Kate, the girl of the title, takes a real liking to him, and after not too long he to her. So they "hook up", so to speak, and this brings on problems, both external in force (he's technically married with a kid in another country, she's got pressure from her family not to have anything to do with this "Godless heathen), and more about the fact that it's a man who could be old enough, if only barely, to be her father. This is a story explored in many kind of films, whether it's throw-a-dart-and-hit a Philip Roth story, or of course Manhattan. There's enough chemistry and charm between the two leading people as Tishingham, even dialed down, is delightful, and Finch does a lot playing usually-crusty and mostly sardonic/sarcastic speaking (if there had been a remake some years back I could've seen Alan Rickman in his role), plus Lynn Redgrave being wonderful and funny in her supporting place. But there's not much here that elevates it past its time and place; it's a perfectly fine drama, and it doesn't distinguish itself past some insights, which are only insightful up to a point, that you may need to grow as a person (or can never meet the other on the flipside due to losing "youthful vigor" as an aging man) to have a relationship work sometimes. There's a nice, tender feeling to the film, Finch and Tushingham make a good pair on screen (precisely because we kind of know, deep down, it's not only not going to work but it can't not ever work, if that makes sense, so let's see them in the little moments) and that should work for anyone looking for that. Although some things that contribute to the 'hasnt-aged-terribly-well' is, say, when the film is edited so early on in their courtship Eugene and Kate talk and one part of a sentence begins in a new location and then another and another, and it feels distracting.

Desmond Davis may be the finest director ever to have been 'overlooked' by the British film establishment. A former camera operator Davis directed his first feature in 1964 and it's a small masterpiece and one of the most beautifully shot black and white films in all of British cinema, (Manny Wynn was the DoP). "Girl with Green Eyes" was adapted by Edna O Brien from her novel "The Lonely Girl" and it's set in Dublin where friends Kate and Baba share lodgings and where Kate meets a much older English writer, (an excellent Peter Finch), with whom she has an affair. It's a very simple picture, closer in tone to the French New Wave than the British Kitchen Sink and while now it's largely been forgotten it was surprisingly successful in its day, winning the Golden Globe for Best English Language Foreign Film while Davis took the National Board of Review's Best Director prize. Davis followed it with two more superb 'small' films, "The Uncle" and another O'Brien story "I Was Happy Here" before a brief breakthrough into more commercial fare and then an awful lot of television. Still alive at ninety, his name may not mean much to the present generation of cineastes but his first three films alone, and "Girl with Green Eyes" in particular, have earned him his place in the sun