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Pre-Hollywood
Hitchcock scuttled by terminal European angst and outdated caricatures.
For all
its humor, its colorful characters, its antiquated conventions, Juno
and the Paycock closes
with a downer ending which makes one wonder if the poor, suffering mass
of Humanity might not all be better off dead. It's less of a tearjerker
than a suicidal
depression-jerker
and really must be seen to be believed.
To
be fair, Juno
and the Paycock
is a faithful adaptation of a play by Sean O' Casey, so the ending was
preordained. And again, to be fair, it must be said that the play in
question is a fine play, true to its subject, full of "hilarious"
Irish
stereotypes (Ugh!),
a play that includes many timely dramatic twists intended to keep the
audience interested and entertained the whole way through. The actors
in Hitchcock's version are certainly competent (except,
perhaps, for John Laurie as the amputee son).
And,
of course, there's that ending, which could never be accused of bowing
to feel-good sentimentality, not by a light-year.
Now,
on to the plot.
Juno
(Sara
Allgood)
is
the long-suffering wife of Captain Boyle
(played
with relish by Edward Chapman)
who
fancies himself a sea-captain but who is, in reality, a lazy, unemployed
drunken-Irishman --you know the type. With Juno and the Captain live
their still-available daughter Mary
(Kathleen
O' Regan)
and
their amputee/stool pigeon son Johnny
(John
Laurie).
Drunken-Irishman
that he is, the Captain struts around like a peacock (pronounced
"paycock" by those humorous Irish-folk --maybe one day they'll
get the English language right!)
as
he strives to (a)
avoid
gainful employment and
(b)
acquire
another drink. Naturally he dreams that someday a great sum of money
will fall into his lap --what sodden Irish simpleton wouldn't?
Then
one day, upon the death of a never-seen relative the Captain's dream
comes true. The family borrows heavily in advance of The Big Check in
order that they might move right up into a more comfortable middle-class
lifestyle.
(No
patience, some people!)
Some
time later the family discovers that the Big Check won't be coming after
all, after which things go from bad to worse to just plain God-awful.
So much
for the luck of the Irish.
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