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.
ProductionJohn 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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| The Age 18 Feb 1960 |
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| SMH 10 April 1960 |
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| SMH 12 Oct 1959 |
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| SMH 19 Oct 1959 |
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| SMH 25 Oct 1959 |
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| AWW 4 Nov 1959 |
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| The Age 25 Feb 1960 |
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| SMH 22 May 1967 |
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| The Age 19 Feb 1960 |
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| The Age 18 Feb 1960 |
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| SMH 17 Oct 1959 |
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| SMH 16 May 1960 |
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| From Plays for Modern Media |
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| TV Times |
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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| GTV |
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