Juno and the Paycock

Sean O'Casey's controversial stage play about a shanty Irish family caught up in the times of Ireland's fight for independence get's a rough going over in this Alfred Hitchcock screen adaptation. With it's primitive soundtrack O'Casey's eloquence and dark wit is often garbled and indecipherable. Master of suspense Hitchcock seems content to just film the stage play with about half a dozen set ups and few camera movements. Performance wise he enlists stage vets from The Vic and The Abbey who en masse chew the scenery to pieces. Trained to reach the audience in the rear of the balcony the players are ill suited to the nuance required in this new art form and they remain over the top from start to finish.

Hitch does display flashes of brilliance with the new medium of sound in a couple of scenes involving the informer family member wracked with guilt and paranoia but for the most part he plays it safe, allowing his thespians to recite O'Casey's lyrical dialogue which technical bugs trample.

Dated as it may be Juno and the Paycock performed on stage can be a powerful theatre going experience with its memorable characters and well balanced tragi-comic theme that rails against social hypocrisy. I'm not sure a "sophisticated" film version today would do the play the justice that it receives's within the intimacy of the stage where one gets the feeling your sitting in the Boyles parlor. Suffice to say the 1929 version leaves you in the basement looking for a light switch.