The Molly Maguires
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Movie Reviews of The Molly Maguires
Movie Review: ACTOR RICHARD HARRIS PORTRAYS JAMES MCKENNA WHO INFILTRATED MY GRANDFATHER JOHN MCKENNA'S GRANDFATHER PATRICK MCKENNA'S FAMILY
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is slow moving and grimly realistic. Although it
was unsuccessful during its original Hollywood release it is an
accurate rendition of the life of coal miners in 1800's Pennsylvania.
The Molly Maguires were an immigrant Irish terrorist group
who were concentrated in such coal mining locations as Carbon and Schuylkill and a few other counties throughout Pennsylvania in the 1860's and 1870's.
Sean Connery dominated early James Bond movies so thoroughly
that it misleadingly seems like he is relegated to second-fiddle
status in this interesting film. This movie is the direct antithesis of a James Bond movie. Do not make the mistake of subconsciously rating this film low because it doesn't live up to James Bond movie standards! This may be the only Hollywood movie to ever explore the Molly Maguires topic.
Actor Richard Harris portrays an Irish immigrant named
James McParlan who assumes the false imposter identity of a James McKenna
in order to infiltrate the Molly Maguires organization and convict
them of murder.
In reality my deceased grandfather John Aloysius McKenna's grandfather was Patrick McKenna who was an immigrant from the city of Castlereagh in County Donegal, Ireland. Patrick owned a saloon called "McKenna's" in Summit Hill, Pennsylvania (a few miles outside of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania in Carbon County). My great-great grandfather Patrick McKenna was convicted in 1876 for being an accomplice in the murder of Welsh coal mining supervisor Morgan Powell. Patrick's brother-in-law Thomas P. Fisher (brother of my great-great grandmother Bridget Fisher McKenna) was one of twenty men who were hung after his conviction in the Molly Maguire murder trials although he denied being guilty all the way to the gallows.
Actor Richard Harris's reenactment of a fictional James McKenna represented my real McKenna ancestors. Coincidentally my great-grandfather's name was James McKenna (he was one of Patrick McKenna's sons). My McKenna family is also described in detail in the book by
Allan Pinkerton entitled "The Mollie Maguires and the Detective" which was first published in 1877.
Movie Review: Damnation in the Pennsylvania coalfields
Summary: 5 Stars
The Molly Maguires is the kind of film that would simply never be made today: a major studio picture about social injustice and betrayal in the coalfields of Pennsylvania in 1876 that became one of the most colossal box-office flops of all time (despite a massive budget and the presence of Sean Connery, it actually grossed even less than John Sayles' low-budget Matewan). Set in the aftermath of a failed strike where a group of miners are trying to win with dynamite what they lost with a strike as their powerlessness turns into violent action, it's a surprisingly bitter film for a studio picture, even in the 1970s. There's no doubting that Richard Harris' infiltrator is damned. Screenwriter Walter Bernstein was blacklisted, and that experience clearly fuels much of the script. Certainly the end, where absolution is denied, recalls Abraham Polonsky's comment that he got through being blacklisted "because I knew for me one day it would end. For those who named names, it will never end."
But there's more to his script than mere words: huge sections of the film are played without dialogue - it's 15 minutes before a single word is spoken and 40 before Sean Connery speaks despite his background presence quietly dominating much of the proceedings. James Wong Howe's astounding scope photography is a major asset, quietly confident as it paints with light a real portrait of a time and place, conveying a sense of the way the pits worked in the beautifully timed establishing shots. There's real intelligence in the framing of the film, whether turning a door frame into an impromptu confessional booth or, in the haunting final shot, turning a rehearsal for one man's execution into another man's silent purgatory. Henry Mancini's score, along with The White Dawn his most beautiful and atypical, is another major plus in a seriously undervalued film.
Paramount's DVD is a bare-bones affair - neither the trailer nor the 10-minute short about the film's making shot at the time are included, with only an optional stereo soundtrack as an extra. The 2.35:1 transfer is good, but not quite as good as the previous laserdisc release.
Movie Review: Like the 19th Century Coming Out of Your TV Set
Summary: 5 Stars
James Wong Howe's cinematography looks beautiful on the restored DVD version of this underrated film, an unearthly intervention which brings us the actual physicality of the 19th century in light and radiance. It was an era in which electric light was just being invented and candles and gaslight were still the norm, that is, among people with the money to afford them. The unwashed faces of the coal miners and the families they supported form a canvas from Brueghel, but even the whole weight of the mining companies cannot extinguish the inner spark in their eyes.
Filmed by the Left-leaning director Martin Ritt, freed up from the blacklist that crippled the earlier part of his career, THE MOLLY MAGUIRES finds Ritt at a curious place, picking at the ugly scab of US history that the scandalous MOLLY MAGUIRES represents. Indeed historians argue whether or not there was ever a conspiracy among Fenians to bring down the oligarchy of the oppressive coal mining companies through so-called "shillelagh law." Ritt was able to attract not only Richard Harris but top-billed Sean Connery to this project; for each of them a commercial risk. Indeed the movie, re-edited at the studio by nervous bosses, probably doesn't represent the script that Connery and Harris read. Samantha Eggar, one of the loveliest of 60s screen actresses, took the leading women's role which was turned down by Anjanette (LOVED ONE) Comer. Oddly enough, thirty years later, Comer took the minor part of "Sue" in TV's recreation of the nine miners in Pennsylvania who were rescued from the Quecreek cave-in in the summer of 2002.
Yes, the film is depressing. Yes, it is slow-moving, sparked by moments of intense brutality. But give it a chance and savor its unique blend of 1870s locations and 1970 radical filmmaking.
Movie Review: Buying this for my husband
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this movie many years ago and loved it. What I've read in the most recent reviews, however, leaves out that the script is based on a real, historic trial and hanging that took place in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It is notorious in that the man whose character is portrayed by Sean Connery, before being hung, placed his hand on the wall of his cell and swore his innocence. The handprint can still be seen in the jail, which is now an historic landmark. It has been scrubbed, sanded, and even painted over -- yet it still shows through. Now that it is available in DVD form, I am buying it for my husband, who I think will enjoy it. We both decend from Pennsylvania mining stock -- not Irish, but Jewish! In fact, during the mining violence of the 1920s, my uncle delivered payroll to the mines. The rules said he had to carry a gun and ammunition -- so he carried a .23 pistol and a 12-gauge shotgun shell, claiming the rules did not say the ammunition had to match the gun and he had no intention of killing anyone. . . . .Movie Review: Great Slice of Coal Country Pennsylvania
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great movie, it really is a good one. The subject matter represents a lost piece of Pennsylvania's past. As a son of the Keystone state, I sometimes feel a need to indulge in the nostalgia of that part of the state. I am a Dutchman, from a little bit south of mine country. But, I love the coal country part of Pennsylvania. From all the stories I have heard first hand from those who group up in coal country in the 20s, this story is an accurate portrayal of the miners struggles with the company owners. It accurately portrays the challenges faced by these working class heroes, and we should all be happy that the story is being told. If we forget this chapter of labor relations within mine country, we will loose a key part of the story of who we have become and where we have come from. The acting is good as well. So do not think this is a dry documentary-like movie, this movie is not. But, it is still an informative and entertaining movie.