Based on an American TV play.
Premise
A stranger arrives in an Irish village during a thunderstorm. They are
convinced he is an emissary from Heaven. He sets about selling them
plots in Heaven. He says he was sent by St Colomba
patron saint of the village who he says is annoyed the villagers have
allowed the church to fall into disrepair. He says money from the sale
of plots of land will go to repair the church.
Cast
- Minnie Love as Lady Malmoney
- Mary Mackay as Mss Prym
- Tom Farley as Farmer Finney
- Gwen Plumb as Mrs Mappin
- Wynne Nelson as Miss Miller
- Nellie Lampore as Mother Sixpence
- John Meillon as Traveller
- Alistair Duncan as Willy Figg
- Lyn Falson as fiddler
- Jerry Duggan a constable
Original TV play
The play by Michael Dyne had been filmed in the US in 1957 as an episode of Matinee Theatre with Robert Horton as the Traveller.
The play was published in a 1957 collection of TV scripts. See here. It was in another 1960 collection which you can access on internet archive here.
Other adaptations
It would be filmed again in Canada in 1960 as an episode of Startime with Robert Goulet as the Traveller.
Production John Meillon was cast in the lead on the basis of his performance in Thunder of Silence.
Stanley Kramer, who directed Meillon in On the Beach, called him "a brilliant young actor, and he could take his place in any moving-picture market of the world."
It was the only TV performance of Wynne Nelson. Cul Cullen did the sets.
Reception
The ABC Weekly listing is here.
The TV critic for the Sydney Morning Herald called it "a piece
of folksy whimsy" which was overlong and suffered from cliches and poor
accents. He said Meillon "was very effective in a quiet and
craftsmanlike way; but the vigour that would have provided the proper
foil for his well-judged performance was not vitally forthcoming from
the actors around him. David Cahill's direction, within the limits set
by the play itself, was fine:' and inventive, and there was some very
precise and imaginative marrying of image and sound. But if we are going
to have Irish plays, why not something like Juno and the Paycock or Shadow of a Gunman? There is not much merit in producing a poor play just because it is relatively new."
The Sunday Sydney Morning Herald called it "a most creditable job for all concerned."
The critic for the Woman's Weekly said the play "nearly
sent me round the bend" in which a "wonderful idea... was almost
completely lost in a welter of phony Irish accents" and Meillon "was
sadly miscast."
The Age said "every time Meillon opened his mouth I could ses only that beautifully starched shirt. A pity."
TV Times called it "fun".
Listener In called the "the best comedy ever made on Australian television".
A 1967 review of Australian television drama said that this and Johnny Belinda were among the most successful of early Australian TV plays.
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TV Times
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The latest in Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian TV plays looks at the 1959 John Meillon vehicle, A Tongue of Silver.
For a country whose history and culture was/is so influenced by
Ireland and the Irish, Australia has not exhibited that much interest in
depicting Ireland on screen. To be sure (to be sure), Irish characters
swarm over colonial era sagas, particularly anything involving convicts,
bushrangers or the Eureka Stockade, but there has been a surprising
lack of interest in showing Ireland itself.
Early Australian TV plays were adapted from writers as varied as
Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, Jean Cocteau and Jean Anouilh, but Irish
playwrights like O’Casey, Yeats, Behan and Beckett were ignored; plays
by Shaw and Oscar Wilde were filmed, but only ones with English
settings.
A rare Australian TV play actually set in Ireland was A Tongue of Silver, an episode of the ATN-7 anthology series Shell Presents (1959-60).
This was based on a script by Michael Dyne which had previously been filmed for US television in 1957 as an installment of Matinee Theatre.
The story is set in a small village visited by a mysterious traveller
who claims to be an emissary from the Lord; the traveller tells the
villagers they can get into Heaven provided they give him money for
plots of land.
It was a light comedy about a conman, gullible rustics and a smart and sassy schoolteacher, sort of like The Music Man meets The Quiet Man
come to think of it (the story would have made an ideal musical and/or
John Ford movie). The script appears to have been highly regarded at the
time, being published in an anthology, The Best Television Scripts of 1957, and was filmed again for US TV in 1960 with Robert Goulet.
This acclaim presumably contributed to ATN-7’s decision to film Dyne’s script in Australia for Shell Presents.
My guess (and it’s only a guess, but an educated one) is that they
wanted to tell an “Irish story”, but didn’t wish to tackle anything
political (which ruled out, say, adaptions of Sean O’Casey and Brendan
Behan), and preferred using a road-tested script that had already been
filmed overseas versus taking the risk of commissioning something new
from an Australian writer with Irish heritage (of which there were quite
a few, even then, including Jon Cleary, Peter Kenna, Michael Noonan and
Morris West.) They may also have been influenced by the fact that A Tongue of Silver would provide a terrific star part for John Meillon, who had just impressed in On the Beach (1959) and an earlier episode of Shell Presents called Thunder of Silence.
The play was shot at ATN-7’s studios in Epping, Sydney, under
director David Cahill, who does a typically excellent job. Meillon is
perfectly cast as a smooth-talking con man, full of blarney and charm;
he even sings several times, twice while playing the harp, which is
cool. It’s also fun to see Gwen Plumb as a barmaid, Minnie Love as a
particularly naive rich old lady, and Gerry Duggan (an Irish actor, then
living in Australia, who later had roles in films such as Goldfinger) as a policeman.
It’s a shame that the story couldn’t have been adapted to be set
in Australia – we have plenty of gullible idiots here too – and if you
don’t like Irish whimsy, then A Tongue of Silver is unlikely to
change your mind, but if you do, you’ll have good time watching it. The
theme of a shameless conman praying on people’s fears has not aged one
bit, the cast all get into the spirit of things, and it provides one of
our greatest actors (Meillon) with a fantastic lead role.
A copy of the play is available from the National Film and Sound Archive if you can get to a viewing centre.
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