Green Grow the Rushes is a 1951 British comedy film directed by Derek N. Twist and starring Roger Livesey, Richard Burton and Honor Blackman. It was the first film to be released by ACT Films, an entity formed by a trade union for filmmakers.[2][3] The film was produced by John Gossage and funded by the National Film Finance Corporation and the Co-Operative Wholesale Society Bank.[4] It is an adaptation of the 1949 novel of the same title by Howard Clewes.
| Green Grow the Rushes | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Derek N. Twist |
| Written by |
|
| Based on | Green Grow the Rushes by Howard Clewes |
| Produced by | John W. Gossage |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Harry Waxman |
| Edited by | Hazel Wilkinson |
| Music by | Lambert Williamson |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 77 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $250,000[1] |
It was made at Elstree Studios near London with sets the designed by the art director Frederick Pusey. Location shooting took place on the coastal Romney Marsh around the town of New Romney.[5]
Plot
editThree British government bureaucrats arrive in Kent to inquire as to why the coastal Anderida marsh is not being cultivated. The reason is that most of the local people know about or are involved in the liquor smuggling scheme operated by Captain Biddle and his accomplice Robert (Richard Burton), who is posing as a fisherman when he is seen by the newspaper editor and his journalist daughter Meg.
Robert persuades them not to report it in the newspaper, and tells Biddle about his encounter with them. Biddle does not like the idea of any local "Lily White" (woman) knowing about their illegal activity; he was once married to a Lily White. The smugglers’ next cargo gets caught in a violent storm, and their boat washes inland, settling in the meadow of a farmer whose wife Polly happens to be Biddle's ex-wife.
Cast
edit- Richard Burton as Robert Hammond
- Honor Blackman as Meg Cuffley
- Roger Livesey as Captain Cedric Biddle
- Frederick Leister as Colonel Gill
- Arnold Ridley as Tom Cuffley
- John Salew as Herbert Finch
- Colin Gordon as Roderick Fisherwish
- Geoffrey Keen as Spencer Prudhow
- Russell Waters as Joseph Bainbridge
- Vida Hope as Polly
- Cyril Smith as Constable Hewitt
- Jack McNaughton as Sgt. Edgar Rigby
- Eliot Makeham as James Urquhart, Coast Guard
- Gilbert Davis as Whitley
- Harcourt Williams as Chairman of the Bench
- Archie Duncan as Constable Pettigrew
- Bryan Forbes as Fred Starling, Biddle's crewman)
- Harold Goodwin as Gosling, Biddle's crewman
- Henrik Jacobsen as Sigismund, Biddle's crewman
Background
editBased on the 1949 novel Green Grow the Rushes by Howard Clewes. The title, at least, is inspired by the 18th-century folk song "Green Grow the Rushes, O", in which each of the 12 verses after the first has the penultimate line, "Two, two, the lily-white boys, clothed all in green O."
Release
editThe film recouped its cost. However the NFFC rejected ACT's next two proposed projects, films about Sir William Hastings and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. So the company made less politically active films from then on.[6] The film was re-released in 1954 under the alternative title Brandy Ashore.[2]
See also
edit- Variety (weekly) 21 November 1951.
References
edit- ^ "Brit Technicians Union Preps 2DFilm Venture Despite 1st Co-Op Snafu". Variety. 14 May 1952. p. 16. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
- ^ a b The British Film Catalogue, 11606.
- ^ Monthly Film Bulletin, 1951 page 371.
- ^ Action! Fifty Years in the Life of a Union. Published: 1983 (UK). Publisher: ACTT. ISBN 0 9508993 0 5. ACT Films Limited - Ralph Bond p81 (producer listed as John Gossage) - "He welcomed the project and urged the recently established National Film Finance Corporation to help finance our first film...After some rather difficult negotiations , the NFFC agreed to put up approximately two-thirds of the budget and the Co-operative Wholesale Society Bank put up the remainder."
- ^ Kent Film Office. "Kent Film Office Green Grow the Rushes Article".
- ^ Harper, Sue; Porter, Vincent (2003). British Cinema of The 1950s The Decline of Deference. Oxford University Press USA. p. 14.