This film is based upon the second volume of Edna O'Brien's "Country Girls" trilogy. That novel was originally published as "The Lonely Girl", but for some reason this was changed in the film adaptation to "Girl with Green Eyes", even though it was made in black and white so one cannot tell what colour the main character's eyes are. Subsequent editions of the book were also entitled "Girl with Green Eyes".
The title character is Kathleen "Kate" Brady, a naive young girl from the rural west of Ireland, who moves to Dublin, where she works in a grocer's shop and shares a room with her friend and schoolmate, Barbara "Baba" Brennan. (Baba is only a secondary character in "Girl with Green Eyes", but she plays a more central role in the other two episodes of the trilogy). Kate hopes to find a boyfriend, but she is shy and naïve and has less success than the more worldly-wise Baba. Eventually, however, Kate becomes involved with the middle-aged Eugene Gaillard, and it is their romance which forms the main subject-matter of the film. (In the original novel Eugene was a film-maker, but here he becomes a writer).
The age difference between Kate and Eugene is not the only obstacle in the way of their relationship. She is a devout Catholic and he a freethinker who does not share her faith. To make matters worse, he is married with a child. He is separated from his wife, but the two are not formally divorced. (At the period when the film is set, divorce was not possible in the Irish Republic; Mrs Gaillard, an American by birth, has had to return to her native country in order to obtain one). Kate's widowed father is horrified by the idea that his daughter is involved with a married man and he descends on Dublin with a group of friends, virtually kidnapping Kate and forcing her to return home, although at the first opportunity she can get she runs back to Eugene.
When the "Country Girls" trilogy was first published, between 1960 and 1963, it caused great controversy in O'Brien's native Ireland. It could be published in Britain but was banned in the Republic, and copies of the books were publicly burned. (It seems that the only freedom the Irish people had gained by secession from the UK was the freedom to be less free than their neighbours). It is therefore surprising that permission was given to make the film in Dublin and other Irish locations, even though it was made in 1964, only a hear after the final instalment in the trilogy had come out.
The film was, however, made by a British production company, Woodfall Film Productions, and the leading actors were all either British (Rita Tushingham as Kate, Lynn Redgrave as Baba) or Australian (Peter Finch as Eugene). Despite the Irish setting, it was made in the "kitchen sink" social-realist style popular in Britain in the late fifties and sixties. Woodfall had earlier made other films in this style, such as "A Taste of Honey", which also starred Tushingham, and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner", both directed by Tony Richardson, who acted as executive producer for "Girl with Green Eyes". The director, however, was Desmond Davis, making his directorial debut after working as a cameraman. .
At the time, the "kitchen sink" school was hailed as marking a new departure in British film-making, although the vogue for films of this nature was to be a relatively brief one, and did not really survive into the seventies (not, by any means, the most distinguished decade in British cinema history). "Spring and Port Wine" from 1970 can be seen as marking the end of the line. Nevertheless, that brief period saw some films of genuine quality and gave a voice to the British working class who had previously been neglected by the country's film-makers.
There are first-rate performances from Tushingham as Kate, a much more sensitive and vulnerable figure than her Jo in "A Taste of Honey", and from Finch as Eugene, a rather more sympathetic figure than he is in the book, a sophisticated, intellectual type who is at first flattered by the attentions of a younger woman, but who realises that the differences between them are too great to be easily overcome. "Girl with Green Eyes" is perhaps less well-known today than films like "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "A Taste of Honey" or "The Loneliness...", but I think it deserves to be better remembered.
The title character is Kathleen "Kate" Brady, a naive young girl from the rural west of Ireland, who moves to Dublin, where she works in a grocer's shop and shares a room with her friend and schoolmate, Barbara "Baba" Brennan. (Baba is only a secondary character in "Girl with Green Eyes", but she plays a more central role in the other two episodes of the trilogy). Kate hopes to find a boyfriend, but she is shy and naïve and has less success than the more worldly-wise Baba. Eventually, however, Kate becomes involved with the middle-aged Eugene Gaillard, and it is their romance which forms the main subject-matter of the film. (In the original novel Eugene was a film-maker, but here he becomes a writer).
The age difference between Kate and Eugene is not the only obstacle in the way of their relationship. She is a devout Catholic and he a freethinker who does not share her faith. To make matters worse, he is married with a child. He is separated from his wife, but the two are not formally divorced. (At the period when the film is set, divorce was not possible in the Irish Republic; Mrs Gaillard, an American by birth, has had to return to her native country in order to obtain one). Kate's widowed father is horrified by the idea that his daughter is involved with a married man and he descends on Dublin with a group of friends, virtually kidnapping Kate and forcing her to return home, although at the first opportunity she can get she runs back to Eugene.
When the "Country Girls" trilogy was first published, between 1960 and 1963, it caused great controversy in O'Brien's native Ireland. It could be published in Britain but was banned in the Republic, and copies of the books were publicly burned. (It seems that the only freedom the Irish people had gained by secession from the UK was the freedom to be less free than their neighbours). It is therefore surprising that permission was given to make the film in Dublin and other Irish locations, even though it was made in 1964, only a hear after the final instalment in the trilogy had come out.
The film was, however, made by a British production company, Woodfall Film Productions, and the leading actors were all either British (Rita Tushingham as Kate, Lynn Redgrave as Baba) or Australian (Peter Finch as Eugene). Despite the Irish setting, it was made in the "kitchen sink" social-realist style popular in Britain in the late fifties and sixties. Woodfall had earlier made other films in this style, such as "A Taste of Honey", which also starred Tushingham, and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner", both directed by Tony Richardson, who acted as executive producer for "Girl with Green Eyes". The director, however, was Desmond Davis, making his directorial debut after working as a cameraman. .
At the time, the "kitchen sink" school was hailed as marking a new departure in British film-making, although the vogue for films of this nature was to be a relatively brief one, and did not really survive into the seventies (not, by any means, the most distinguished decade in British cinema history). "Spring and Port Wine" from 1970 can be seen as marking the end of the line. Nevertheless, that brief period saw some films of genuine quality and gave a voice to the British working class who had previously been neglected by the country's film-makers.
There are first-rate performances from Tushingham as Kate, a much more sensitive and vulnerable figure than her Jo in "A Taste of Honey", and from Finch as Eugene, a rather more sympathetic figure than he is in the book, a sophisticated, intellectual type who is at first flattered by the attentions of a younger woman, but who realises that the differences between them are too great to be easily overcome. "Girl with Green Eyes" is perhaps less well-known today than films like "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "A Taste of Honey" or "The Loneliness...", but I think it deserves to be better remembered.