What profit a man if he loseth his soul?

rmax304823

This is an amusing and charming Irish fairy tale. A reporter and columnist, Steven Fitzgerald (Tyrone Power) gets lost on a visit to Ireland and finds himself at a country inn run by Nora (Ann Baxter) and her father. He bumps into a leprechaun (Cecil Calloway), forces him to offer up his pot of gold, and, thinking the little guy is some kind of fruitcake, gives it back to him. Calloway promises eternal gratitude and gives him a Spanish doubloon as a good luck piece. Power and Baxter are attracted to one another but Power has other plans in New York and takes his leave.

In New York, he's been hired at a high salary to write speeches and essays in support of a politician, Lee J. Cobb. Cobb's influential, rich, and powerful daughter (Jayne Meadows) goes with the job. But Power and Cobb have their disagreements. On top of that, a "man" shows up, claiming to have been sent by the agency, to take care of Powers' modern new apartment. He bears a suspicious resemblance to the leprechaun and is played by the same actor. Baxter shows up in New York to attend a kinsman's wedding and meets Power by accident on a crowded subway. Powers' dissatisfaction with his new responsibilities grows until he finally leaves his fiancée and his job, marries Baxter, and returns to Ireland to work.

The first half hour and the last few minutes are set in the Irish village and they're as charming as a child's fairy tale. The much longer center section is a morality tale with serious overtones, and I'm afraid it turns into a story of a man who discovers his life is empty and decides to change it radically. (Power has done this trip before, in "The Razor's Edge.") The "peasants" are pretty generic. So are the cold-hearted cosmopolites back in New York. The former all have large families, are fun loving, cheerful, a little careless about punctuality, believe in legends, know how to drink, have dances and play lots of music, and put away big meals, and don't much worry about money. This is true of all generic peasants. It doesn't matter whether they're Irish or Jewish or Italian or Polish or Greek or anything else. Zorba the Mick.

But that doesn't matter much. It's still fun. There are some people in Ireland who believe that Americans have a fairy-tale view of the Auld Sod, but although H. L. Mencken argued that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people, I think we're all smart enough to know a fairy tale when we see one. Why are all such Irish fantasies set in a green countryside, with stone walls, rolling hills, patches of woodland, and softly flowing brooks? Partly because so much of the country actually looks like that, and partly because the cities do not. Anyone for Belfast? Power is handsome. Baxter and Calloway all do respectable Irish accents. Rod Serling probably would have enjoyed adapting this for a Twilight Zone episode. Overall, it's quite enjoyable.

score 6/10

rmax304823 24 October 2007

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1751910/