Hull Daily Mail (28/Oct/1930) - Juno and the Paycock

Details

• article: Juno and the Paycock
• newspaper: Hull Daily Mail (28/Oct/1930)
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Edward Chapman, John Laurie, Juno and the Paycock (1930), Maire O'Neill, Sara Allgood, Sean O'Casey, Sidney Morgan

Article

Juno and the Paycock

As it was one of the finest plays of our generation, this makes one of the finest films, too. It would be difficult to overpraise this masterpiece, which is acted by the Irish Players and produced by Alfred Hitchcock.

Poet and peasant were the characters and theme of the older Irish drama of Synge and Yeats. Sean O'Casey, the bricklayer-playwright, looks into the heart of the Dublin tenements, and sees the shiftlessness, the humour, the cowardice of the Irish; their intolerant religion and patriotism; their too-easy response to words. t Hence the sharp alternations of comedy and tragedy, so unusual in literature, so familiar in life. We see the gay little parlour sing-song, interrupted by the woman wailing for her dead son. Almost before the strain of music dies there is the rattle of machine-guns, and the shooting of an informer...

Sara Allgood comes straight to grips with life in her strong and superb portrayal of Juno, the woman who is martyred on the altar of a weak family. Maire O'Neil, who played the part in Hull, is now equally good as the talkative neighbour. That sly scoundrel Joxer Daley is depicted to the last wrinkle of his greasy coat by Sidney Morgan and "Captain" Boyle is drawn with a sure touch by Edward Chapman. A minor study of a high emotional pitch is that of John Laurie as the traitor.

Hitchcock, (he greatest English producer, has left O'Casey's dialogue practically untouched. His street scenes are fine camera-work and towards the end there are some wonderful close-up studies of faces and a statuette of the Virgin.