“To begin at the beginning. It is spring, a moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows’ weeds. And all of the people of the lulled and dumfound town are sleeping now”.
This star-studded film version of the masterpiece “play for voices” by Dylan Thomas was personally underwritten by Richard Burton, as he was so keen to make the work available to a broader public. The three principal stars were just paid £10,000 for their services.
One night, while the townsfolk of the Welsh village of Llareggub (“bugger all” spelt backwards) wrestle with their dreams, Tom Cat (Peter O’Toole) – a blind, retired sea Captain, recalling memories of drowned shipmates and Rosie Probert (Elizabeth Taylor), a bewitchingly beautiful whore, and the one great love of his youth – walk the streets with a stranger.
Here are the houses – “blind as moles” – of Myfanwy Price (Glynis Johns), who runs the sweet shop and dreams of Mog Edwards (Victor Spinetti), the local draper; of Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard (Siân Phillips), who tells the sun to wipe its shoes and dreams of her two late husbands; of Willy Nilly the postman (Tim Wylton) whose wife steams open the letters in their “damp, tea-coated misty pygmy kitchen”, and of Mr Pugh (Talfryn Thomas), reading The Lives of the Great Poisoners and contemplating a venomous porridge for Mrs Pugh (Vivien Merchant).
Timid Mr Pugh (Talfryn Thomas) dreams of murdering his pernickety wife (Vivien Merchant); Gossamer Beynon (Angharad Rees), the young and lovely schoolteacher, is the object of barman Sinbad Sailors’ (Michael Forrest) erotic fantasies; and good-time girl Polly Carter (Ann Beach) dreams of the one man who she really loved, Little Willy Wee who is “dead, dead, dead”.
Sadly, large chunks of the wonderful narration are left out, the chronology is changed, and Richard Burton (as “First Voice”) speaks his part like a Welsh Winston Churchill but imparts little feeling to the role.
There’s also a scene of completely gratuitous tag-team (fully clothed in modern garb) sex in a barn, which definitely is not in the original story . . .
Location filming took place around the small harbour at Lower Town, Fishguard in Pembrokeshire.
Peter O’Toole – as Captain Tom Cat – spends the latter part of the film with his eyes closed because he couldn’t stand wearing the contact lenses that gave him the appearance of blindness, which he wore in the earlier parts of the movie.
First Voice
Richard Burton Second Voice
Ryan Davies Rosie Probert
Elizabeth Taylor Captain Tom Cat
Peter O’Toole Myfanwy Price
Glynis Johns Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard
Siân Phillips Mog Edwards
Victor Spinetti Gossamer Beynon
Angharad Rees Mr Waldo
Ray Smith Sinbad Sailors
Michael Forrest Polly Garter
Ann Beach Mr Cherry Owen
Glynn Edwards Mrs Cherry Owen
Bridget Turner Mr Pugh
Talfryn Thomas Mrs Pugh
Vivien Merchant Mr Willy Nilly
Tim Wylton Mrs Willy Nilly
Bronwen Williams Lily Smalls
Meg Wynn Owen Butcher Beynon
Hubert Rees Rev. Eli Jenkins
Aubrey Richards Evans the Death
Mark Jones Mr Ogmore
Dillwyn Owen Mr Pritchard
Richard Davies Nogood Boyo
David Jason PC Attila Rees
Davyd Harries Utah Watkins
David Davies Mrs Utah Watkins
Maudie Edwards Bessie Bighead
Peggy Ann Clifford Dai Bread
Dudley Jones Mrs Rose Cottage
Jill Britton Waldo Wife One
Andree Gaydon Waldo Wife Two
Eira Griffiths Waldo Wife Three
Margaret Courtenay Waldo Wife Four
Rhoda Lewis Waldo Wife Five
Pamela Miles Ocky Milkman
Griffith Davies Mrs Sarah
Janet Davies Tom Fred
Paul Grist Lord Cut Glass
Dafydd Havard Mother
Iris Jones Mrs Beynon
Mary Jones Mrs Dai Bread One
Dorothea Phillips Mrs Dai Bread Two
Ruth Madoc Bethan
Maia Newley Organ Morgan
Richard Parry Mrs Organ Morgan
Dilys Price Mae Rose Cottage
Susan Penhaligon Alfred Pomeroy Jones
John Rainer Jack Black
John Rees Gwennie
Olwen Rees Curly Bevan
Bryn Williams Gomer Owen
Ieuan Rhys Williams
Timid Mr Pugh (Talfryn Thomas) dreams of murdering his pernickety wife (Vivien Merchant); Gossamer Beynon (Angharad Rees), the young and lovely schoolteacher, is the object of barman Sinbad Sailors’ (Michael Forrest) erotic fantasies; and good-time girl Polly Carter (Ann Beach) dreams of the one man who she really loved, Little Willy Wee who is “dead, dead, dead”.
