This Other Eden. 1959. Ireland. Directed by Muriel Box. Screenplay by Blanaid Irvine, Patrick Kirwan, based on the play by Louis d’Alton. With Audrey Dalton, Leslie Phillips, Niall MacGinnis, Geoffrey Golden, Norman Rodway, Milo O’Shea. Digital restoration courtesy of the IFI Irish Film Archive. International premiere. 81 min.
This Other Eden is the first Irish feature film directed by a woman, Muriel Box, one of Britain’s most prolific female filmmakers. Perhaps the combination was fitting: Anglo-Irish relations is among the many topics—including emigration, political hypocrisy, the wealth of the Catholic Church, and the legacy of the Irish War of Independence and Civil War—covered in this mordant comedy.
Hibernophile Crispin Brown (Leslie Phillips of Carry On fame, who recently passed away) meets Máire McRoarty (Audrey Dalton) en route to Ballymorgan, where the Englishman hopes to settle now that World War II has ended. He must face the suspicions of the townspeople when the statue of the local patriot martyr is destroyed, leading to the revelation of long-hidden secrets.
Producer Emmet Dalton (father of Audrey) was with Republican leader Michael Collins on the day he was shot, an experience that is mirrored in the prologue to the film. Critics pondered if this production—one of the first from Ardmore Studios, which he cofounded—was Dalton’s way of redressing the events of 1922. The play had been wildly successful when it premiered in 1953, directed by Ria Mooney of the Abbey Theatre. She plays the Mother Superior in the film, alongside several other company players.
The IFI Irish Film Archive managed the restoration, which used the original 35mm elements held by the BFI National Archive, thus coming full circle with another Anglo-Irish collaboration.