Shake Hands with the Devil (1959 film)

Shake Hands with the Devil
Shake Hands with the Devil
Directed by	Michael Anderson
Written by	Rearden Conner (novel); Marian Spitzer
Produced by	Michael Anderson
Starring	James Cagney; Don Murray; Dana Wynter; Glynis Johns
Narrated by	Michael Rennie
Cinematography	Erwin Hillier
Edited by	Gordon Pilkington
Music by	William Alwyn
Production; company	Pennebaker Productions
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	21 May 1959;
Running time	111 minutes
Countries	Ireland; United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$2 million

Shake Hands with the Devil is a 1959 British-Irish film produced and directed by Michael Anderson and starring James Cagney, Don Murray, Dana Wynter, Glynis Johns and Michael Redgrave.^[3] The film was written by Marian Spitzer based on the 1933 novel of the same title by Rearden Conner, the son of a Royal Irish Constabulary policeman.

The film is set in 1921 Dublin, where the Irish Republican Army battles the Black and Tans, ex-British soldiers sent to suppress the rebels.

Plot

Irish-American Kerry O'Shea is studying at the College of Surgeons in 1921 Dublin, Ireland, during a guerrilla war – the Irish War of Independence. Apolitical and sick of killing after fighting in World War I, he is drawn into the struggle between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British Black and Tans.

He and his friend and fellow medical student, Paddy Nolan, are caught in the middle of an IRA ambush, and Nolan is shot by the British. Nolan tells O'Shea to fetch Sean Lenihan, one of their professors. Lenihan, it turns out, is also a high-ranking IRA leader known as "the Commandant". Lenihan removes the bullet, but Nolan dies anyway.

Since O'Shea left his textbook (with his name inscribed) at the scene of the ambush, he is now a wanted man. Lenihan takes him to meet his superior, "the General", an old comrade-in-arms of O'Shea's father. When O'Shea refuses his invitation to join the IRA, the General arranges for a boat passage out of Ireland. Lenihan takes him to a hideout by the sea, the base of an IRA unit commanded by Chris Noonan. Lenihan is furious to find local barmaid Kitty Brady consorting with the men there.

When Liam O'Sullivan, a top IRA leader, is wounded escaping from prison, O'Shea agrees to accompany the unit to the rendezvous point to treat him. O'Sullivan is discovered in the boot of the car of aged Lady Fitzhugh and killed in a shootout by the British. When the soldiers check the people in the nearby pub (where the IRA men are waiting), Terence O'Brien tries to hide a pistol he brought (against Noonan's explicit orders). When it is found, it is O'Shea who is taken away. He is brutally beaten by Colonel Smithson of the Black and Tans, but refuses to talk. Lenihan leads a raid to rescue him. At that point, O'Shea decides to join the IRA.

Lady Fitzhugh is sentenced to prison and goes on a hunger strike. Lenihan kidnaps Jennifer Curtis, the widowed daughter of a top British adviser, to try to force a prisoner exchange. Complications ensue when Kerry falls for her. When Kitty gets into trouble, both with Lenihan and the British, she decides to leave Ireland.

Lenihan prepares to assassinate Colonel Smithson at the dock. However, he suspects he has been betrayed when Kitty, purely by coincidence, tries to board a ship there. During the ensuing shootout, Lenihan shoots Kitty dead in cold blood.

When the men reassemble at a lighthouse, they hear two bits of news. First, Lady Fitzhugh has died. Second, the British have offered a peace treaty. The General is satisfied to have peace, but not Lenihan. When he decides to execute Mrs. Curtis, O'Shea has to stop him. They exchange shots, and Lenihan is killed.

Cast

James Cagney as Sean Lenihan
Don Murray as Kerry O'Shea
Dana Wynter as Jennifer Curtis
Glynis Johns as Kitty Brady
Michael Redgrave as The General
Sybil Thorndike as Lady Fitzhugh
Cyril Cusack as Chris Noonan
Harry Brogan as Tom Cassidy
Robert Brown as First Sergeant (Black and Tans)
Lewis Casson as Judge
Christopher Casson as Brigadier
John Cairney as Mike O'Callaghan
Harry H. Corbett as Clancy (as Harry Corbett)
Allan Cuthbertson as Captain
Donal Donnelly as Willie Lafferty
Eithne Dunne as Eileen O'Leary
Richard Harris as Terence O'Brien
William Hartnell as Sergeant Jenkins
John Le Mesurier as British General
Niall MacGinnis as Michael O'Leary
Patrick McAlinney as Donovan, bartender
Ray McAnally as Paddy Nolan
Clive Morton as Sir Arnold Fielding
Noel Purcell as Liam O'Sullivan
Peter Reynolds as Captain (Black and Tans)^[4]
Christopher Rhodes as Colonel Smithson

Production

The film was filmed in Dublin, Ballymore Eustace, and at Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland.

Release

The film received its world premiere on 21 May 1959 in Dublin.^[1]

Critical Reception

In a contemporary review, The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote:

With Shake Hands with the Devil, Michael Anderson gave himself the opportunity fo achieve something really ambitious. He had independence (Troy Films is his own company); he had a theme which could be forcefully developed both at the level of character study and, with its obvious contempory parallels, political comment; he had the Irish setting and a distinguished and capable cast. What he has in fact done is to treat the subject as melodrama, with some intermittently exciting interludes (Lenihan's escape from the operating theatre, Lady FitzHugh's capture), but a continual debasing of his theme's dramatic currency. The Black and Tan savagery becomes a Jackboot caricature; the rebels' lighthouse hideout an excuse for some pretty romantic sea-scapes; the conflict between Kerry's ideals and his involvement in violence is handled in the style of the Western theme of the reluctant gunfighter; and Lenihan's repressions and tensions are indicated mainly insofar as they yield material for a fanciful beach scene in which he spurns Kitty O'Brady, the village prostitute. The style of the film is staccato, flashyand over-emphatic, the camerawork all glistening night streets and heavy shadows, and the playing uneven. James Cagney is spruce, hard-hitting but a little gangsterish, Glynis Johns and Dana Wynter respectively too boisterous and too subdued, and Don Murray effective mainly because he is able to make the most of his natural sincerity. It is Hat though, that Michael Redgrave, as the I.R.A. general, is reduced to platitudes: when it comes to voicing an issue, as it should do in the scenes between Lenihan and the general, the film has all too little to say.^[5]

In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "good", writing: "Strong thriller liked by most critics; a few complained that it cheapened and caricatured the conflict."^[6]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "A distinguished cast of British and Irish actors, plus American Don Murray, bolster James Cagney in this somewhat grim and melodramatic but well-made mix of politics, romance, and violence."^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b Myers, Harold (27 May 1959). "Ireland-Filmed 'Devil' Given 2 Gala Preems in 1st Such Dublin Event". Variety. p. 11. Retrieved 21 September 2019 – via Archive.org.
^ "'Shake Hands with the Devil'". Variety. 23 April 1958. p. 5. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
^ "Shake Hands with the Devil". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 24 December 2023.
^ Vagg, Stephen (11 November 2024). "Peter Reynolds: Forgotten Cad". Filmink. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
^ "Shake Hands with the Devil". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 26 (300): 85. 1 January 1959 – via ProQuest.
^ Quinlan, David (1984). British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. p. 373. ISBN 0-7134-1874-5.
^ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 826. ISBN 9780992936440.