Young Cassidy

The story is set around 1910.

One hour into the story a horse and carriage pass by.

A 1960s-era car is seen turning at an intersection where it just came from.

Those are the closing lines for this greatly edited version of Sean O'Casey's autobiographical story, given a fictional name (John Cassidy), yet obviously playing the great playwright who was equally as involved in freedom fighting in Ireland as he was in breaking into the theater. even the names of his plays are mentioned, with particular emphasis on "The Plough and the Stars", particularly because director John Ford (who spent two weeks directing this before leaving due to illness) directed a greatly edited film version of that play.

"Young Cassidy" is based on Sean O'Casey's autobiography of his early years, "A Mirror in My House."Set in the early 1920s in Dublin, Johnny Cassidy is from a large, working class family and, like most families, struggles to put food on the table.

Occasionally effective, but mostly dull and disappointing, Young Cassidy suffers principally from the miscasting of Rod Taylor in the title role. He doesn't look right, he doesn't act right, and above all he lacks the charisma and personality needed to sustain audience interest over what seems an incredibly long 108 minutes.

The early days of Sean O'Casey, played respectably by the Australian actor Rod Taylor, though I can't imagine the real O'Casey being anything like this. John Ford started the picture, took ill and was replaced by Jack Cardiff.

Sean O'Casey was born John Casey, so a film about his early life that calls him John Cassidy makes sense in a sort of way. The film is based on his autobiographies (there are 6 volumes I believe) which are apparently quite readable but not entirely trustworthy.

"Young Cassidy" was to have been directed by John Ford, but he had to withdraw owing to illness about three weeks into filming, and was replaced by Jack Cardiff, who was credited as director. Had Ford completed it, it would have been his penultimate film; he was to complete one more film, "Seven Women", the following year.

Young Cassidy (1965) was directed by Jack Cardiff, who finished the film after John Ford became ill and couldn't continue. Cardiff was a good, solid director, but he didn't bring Ford's magic to the movie.

I thought I was going to see a Western, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a movie that actually got me to learn about something. Apparently, I had a glaring hole in my college education because I had never heard of Sean O'Casey until I watched this movie.

Interesting biopic of O'Casey - named John Cassidy here - based on the pre-exile, Irish part of his life. The cast is very high-powered and the cameos by Michael Redrave (as W.