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THE CELTIC CONNECTION » MARCH 1992
Hear My Song' - You'll Hate to Leave When it Ends
By MARTHA JAN WALLACE
The plot of the new movie Hear My Song is the comforting, familiar one of Boy Meets Girl, Boy loses Girl, Boy recovers Girl, but the plot is almost secondary to the unfolding scenes of this fresh, funny film. The boy Mickey O'Neill, is played by Adrian Dunbar, who co-wrote the script with director Peter Chelsom.
Mickey is the entertainment impresario of a working-class Irish pub in an unnamed English city. The Girl is Nancy (Tara Fitzgerald), who has a smile so dazzling that it could charm the leaves off of trees. She has easily won Mickey's heart, but even though he presents her with an engagement ring, she can't
f;et him to say those special three ittle words. She flounces off, but this is only the beginning of Mickey's troubles.
He needs a big-name entertainer to draw crowds to the pub, and is taken in by Mr. X, a tenor of Pavarotti-before-dieting proportions, who encourages people to believe that he is Josef Locke, the legendary Irish tenor, who left England just ahead of the tax collector 25 years earlier.
A serious complication for Mickey is that Josef Locke left a brokenhearted Miss Dairy Queen behind,
MOVIES
as well. And the former Miss Dairy Queen? None other than the beautiful Nancy's still beautiful mother, Cathleen Doyle (Shirley Ann Field). The British Chief Constable, who was foiled by Locke's escape, surfaces, ready to get him this time.
When Mr. X tried to take the place of Josef Locke with Cathleen, he is revealed as a fraud, the pub patrons turn against Mickey, the pub owner cancels his lease and Nancy is further estranged from him as she tries to comfort her humiliated mother.
So our hero must go to Ireland and find the real Josef Locke, persuade him to come back to England — where he is still wanted by Inland Revenue — sing to Miss Dairy Queen and malce things right between Mickey and his girl.
Mickey enlists the aid of his old school chum, Fintan O'Donnell (James Nesbitt), who runs an entertainers' agency in Dublin, to help him search. The two set off on a wild series of adventures in the gorgeous country of West Ireland — a chase scene complicated with encounters with the wee folk, pub-dentistry, clocks, cows, wells, and
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Mickey's almost certain demise, at the "Western most point of the known world."
It is Josef Locke (Ned Beatty), of course, who is being chased. He is caught-up with, but hardlycaught.
Beatty is the headliner star of Hear My Song and he is wonderful. Known for his many supporting character roles —often nasty — in Hear My Song he is tough, suspicious, a man with whom you must be completely honest, or else! But he is also honest with himself and realizes he has some regrets about unfinished business in his past.
Josef Locke has unquestioning loyalty from a number of bushy-bearded, wild-looking men who will assist him in anything he wants to do, including dismembering Mickey if Josef gives the sign. By now, Mickey has met his mentor, and we have fallen under the magneticspell that Ned Beatty gives Josef. It is quite believable that Cathleen Doyle still pines for this man.
It wouldn't be fair to give away more of the wacky, suspenseful plot. ButfindingJosefLockeisjust the first of a series of marvellously impossible happenings that move the film along to its surprising conclusion.
Every character — and they are numerous — is perfect. Mickey's two "helpers" in the pub, the wide assortment of musicians — there are in Ireland—the serious drinkers and poker players, the women waiting to cry when Josef sings.
There's no sense here of "troubles" beyond a falling out with one's girl and a near-disaster with a cow. When there is is music and comic 'takes' artfully woven into the story, Irish faces and laughter and talk, adding up to magic entertainment. You hate to leave the theatre when the show is over, and you know that you're going to have to see it again. There are so many delicious moments to be savoured.
Ned Beatty, interviewed in Los Angeles, said he had never been in Ireland before the filming of Hear My Song. But the experience put him in touch with hjs Celtic roots, and stirred up powerful childhood memories.
Hear My Song is dedicated to Josef Locke, who is a real person and who lives in Ireland.
DON'T FORGET YOUR DOG
A Dublin man has been found guilty of stealing a guitar from a music store. His forgetfulness brought about his arrest. Prior to entering the shop he tied his dog outside. After taking the guitar, he forgot about the dog. When he returned later to collet it there was a garda waiting for him.
Liam Ferrie
NED BEATTY as the legendary Josef Locke in Hear my Song
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