John Ford directs Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel and Preston Foster in this IRA drama based on Liam O’Flaherty’s classic novel.

Victor McLaglen is a pitiable braggart and a drunk hoping to get 20 quid so he and his streetwalker sweetheart can escape Dublin for America. So he makes a deal with the devil (the British) and squanders his chance to leave playing the big man. Guilt, betrayal, hedonism. Ford films this like German Expressionism though that may be down to how little budget he had to recreate the Irish capital. He has the perfect leading man though so who cares about the set dressing? My dissertation was on Irish Nationalism In Film and I had to blag watching this as I struggled to gain access to it. Nice to finally catch up on it.

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Perfect Double Bill: I See A Dark Stranger (1946)

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