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<table width="778" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td class="filmmastbg" valign="bottom"> <div class="mastheadfilm">Captain Boycott (1947)</div> </td> </tr> </table> </td></tr> <tr><td width="30"> </td> <td valign="top"> <table width="740" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr><td colspan="3"></td></tr> <tr><td width="435" valign="top"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr><td colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="435" height="20" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2" height="24"><p class="smg">Courtesy of ITV Global Entertainment</p></td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="149"> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" width="417"> <tr> <td colspan="3" height="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="10" alt="" border="0" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="32" valign="top" rowspan="2"><img src="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/files/1080668.jpg" alt="Main image of Captain Boycott (1947)" /></td> <td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" width="10" height="10" alt="" border="0" /></td> <td valign="top" width="366" height="12"> <table width="95%" border="0" style="font-size: 0.6em;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="credsum"> <tbody><tr style="display: none;"><td colspan="2"> </td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">35mm, black and white, 92 mins</td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> <tr><td>Directed by</td><td>Frank Launder</td></tr> <tr><td>Production Company</td><td>Individual Pictures</td></tr> <tr><td>Producers</td><td>Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder</td></tr> <tr><td>Screenplay by</td><td>Frank Launder, Wolfgang Wilhelm</td></tr> <tr><td>Original novel</td><td>Philip Rooney</td></tr> <tr><td>Photography</td><td>Wilkie Cooper</td></tr> <tr><td>Music by</td><td>William Alwyn</td></tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="2"> <div class="castsum"> <p>Cast: Stewart Granger (Hugh Davin), Kathleen Ryan (Anne Killain), Cecil Parker (Captain Charles C. Boycott), Alastair Sim (Father McKeogh), Mervyn Johns (Watty Connell), Noel Purcell (Daniel McGinty), Robert Donat (Charles Stewart Parnell)</p> <a href="credits.html" class="smg-link">Show full cast and credits</a> </div> </td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"> <div class="plotsum"> <p>The story of how the landlord Captain Charles Boycott was defeated by his tenant farmers after they refused to co-operate with him, their success going on to enrich the English language.</p> <a href="synopsis.html" class="smg-link">Show full synopsis</a> </div> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"> <p>Despite the box-office disappointment of his Irish-themed <cite>I See A Dark Stranger</cite> (1946), <cite class="party">Frank Launder</cite> returned to the emerald isle for his next film, both literally (it was shot on location) and thematically. But he took fewer risks with both audience and censor by adapting a true story that took place nearly seventy years earlier.</p><p>Captain Charles Boycott (1832-1897) was a landlord in County Mayo whose extortionate rents and enforced evictions were defeated through well-organised passive resistance by his tenants, fired up by a speech made in 1880 by the prominent politician Charles Stewart Parnell (the President of the Irish Land League, which represented tenants' rights) in which he urged shunning rather than shooting. Boycott alerted <em>The Times</em> to his plight, which coined the word "boycott" that same year.</p><p>The story is strong enough for Launder to present it largely unvarnished, with only a token nod towards commercial necessity in the form of a somewhat perfunctory romance between Hugh Davin (<cite class="party">Stewart Granger</cite>) and Anne Killain (<cite class="party">Kathleen Ryan</cite>). Even that is generally presented in terms of the political complications animating almost every encounter between them: Davin's declaration of love is almost an aside.</p><p>Launder is much more interested in historical analysis, in a considerably more nuanced mode than the highly selective lessons taught by Daniel McGinty (<cite class="party">Noel Purcell</cite>). Although the film's own loyalties are clear, the villagers are by no means all sympathetic. Michael Fagan (<cite class="party">Liam Gaffney</cite>) has an excuse for his murderous attitude towards the Killains, whose presence in his forcibly vacated property he regards as adding insult to injury, but <cite class="party">McGinty</cite>'s enthusiasm for violence goes well beyond anything strictly necessary. On the opposing side, troop commander Lieutenant-Colonel Strickland (<cite class="party">Maurice Denham</cite>) makes some caustic observations of Boycott's conduct, suggesting that he regards the situation as stemming from personal flaws rather than any intractable problems with the landlord-tenant system or indeed Anglo-Irish relations in general.</p><p>If this makes <cite>Captain Boycott</cite> sound like a dry history lesson, it should be stressed that it's also a 1940s <cite class="party">Launder</cite> and <cite class="party">Gilliat</cite> production, which means that it's expertly constructed, wittily scripted, impeccably cast and enormously entertaining. Of those not already mentioned, <cite class="party">Cecil Parker</cite>'s Boycott is a fine study of infuriating English pig-headedness, <cite class="party">Alastair Sim</cite> adds Father McKeogh to his gallery of eccentric authority figures while <cite class="party">Robert Donat</cite> has a brief but compelling cameo as Parnell, whose unexpectedly rousing speech catalyses the film's key events.</p><p class="bricksrc">Michael Brooke</p> <img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="10" border="0" alt="" /> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"></td></tr> </table></td> <td width="1" class="verticaldots"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td> <td width="312" valign="top"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr><td colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="312" height="20" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="3" height="1" border="0" /></td><td><p class="smg">Click titles to see or read more <img src="../../../images/film/icon_arrow.gif" class="noblock" border="0" alt="" /></p></td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="15"><img src="../../../images/gt/GT_film_clips.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="" border="0" /></td> <td class="rh-headcell-film"><span class="thumbhead-film">Video Clips</span></td> </tr> <tr><td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="3" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../media/stream.jsp?id=1079999" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/icon_film.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />1. Selective truth (3:05)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../media/stream.jsp?id=1080137" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/icon_film.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />2. Anne's dilemma (2:57)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../media/stream.jsp?id=1080024" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/icon_film.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />3. Parnell's speech (3:30)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../media/stream.jsp?id=1080035" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/icon_film.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />4. The boycott begins (2:21)</a></td></tr> <tr><td valign="top"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" width="10" height="25" alt="" /></td></tr> </table></td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="10"><img src="../../../images/gt/GT_articles.jpg" class="rh-thumbpic" alt="" border="0" /></td> <td class="rh-headcell-film"><span class="thumbhead-film">GALLERY / SCRIPTS / AUDIO</span></td></tr> <tr><td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="3" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../media/mfb/1075565/index.html" onclick="scriptpopUp(this.href);return false;" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/icon_document.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Monthly Film Bulletin review</a></td></tr> <tr><td valign="top"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" width="10" height="25" alt="" /></td></tr> </table></td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="rh-item"> <tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="20"><img src="../../../images/gt/GT_tv_clips02.jpg" alt="" class="rh-thumbpic" border="0" /></td> <td class="rh-headcell-film"><span class="thumbhead-film">SEE ALSO</span></td></tr> <tr><td><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="3" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/556436/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Cooper, Wilkie (1911-2001)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/565293/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Denham, Maurice (1909-2002)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/447641/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Donat, Robert (1905-1958)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/460434/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Gilliat, Sidney (1908-1994)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/447683/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Granger, Stewart (1913-1993)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/556674/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Johns, Mervyn (1899-1992)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/460455/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Launder, Frank (1906-1997)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/497947/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Morris, Oswald (1915-)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/448873/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Parker, Cecil (1897-1971)</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="../../../people/id/487433/index.html" class="clipmenu-link"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" vspace="2" class="clipmenu-icon-right" border="0" />Sim, Alastair (1900-1976)</a></td></tr> <tr><td valign="top"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" width="10" height="25" alt="" /></td></tr> </table></td></tr> <tr><td class="underline" colspan="2"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr> </table> </td></tr> </table> </td> <td width="8"> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><img src="../../../images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="778" height="20" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3"><table width="778" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr class="upperfoot"> <td width="465" align="right" class="upperfoot"></td> <td class="upperfoot"><div class="footer-txt">  <a href="../../../help/terms.html" class="copylink">2003-14 © BFI Screenonline </a> | <a href="../../../help/credits.html" class="copylink">credits</a></div></td> <td align="right" class="upperfoot"><img src="../../../images/nav/lowernav_right_mask.gif" alt="" border="0" /></td> </tr></table> </td></tr> </table> </div></center> <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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