The Hills of Donegal

This fascinatingly awful film begins ominously with a village square full of singing villagers obviously shot on a soundstage. Fortunately I correctly anticipated that it was to turn out be a stage production in front of an audience; but when leading lady Dinah Sheridan arrived back in the Old Country with new husband John Bentley it turns out to look just as unreal and studio bound.

Irene Handl and Moore Marriott are in it, but along with Tamara Desni's elegant Other Woman tend to take a back seat to the boringly melodramatic central narrative (although Marriott does get to sing, unfortunately), until things are wrapped up very suddenly and very violently.

(The biggest surprise that the film offers is that if Bob Arden, the actor playing soulful young gypsy Daniel seems familiar, as Robert Arden he later played the hero Guy Van Stratten in Orson Welles' 'Confidential Report'.)