Trouble in the Glen

Made with massive profits as a sort of sequel to Republic's mega hit of 1952 THE QUIET MAN, this easy to love piece of B pic blarney shows just how stupendously successful THE QUIET MAN actually was. A lot of very profitable films in the UK ran into a law that saw the rentals marooned there and not able to be returned to the USA, in fact Disney and MGM made many films in the UK to soak up the rentals held in a bank trust there by this law. For once in it's budget constricted life the Kingdomof Repubic made soooo much money there they could'nt get it all home and were basically happily forced to make another version of THE QUIET MAN which I am sure suited them fine anyway. Obviously not as big nor as successful as that film, TROUBLE IN THE GLEN was the sort of charming rustic family film made regularly in the UK anyway. GEORDIE is a good example. TROUBLE has a great cast and a few surprises (such as Orson Welles) to add prestige..or maybe he was a Republic favourite after MACBETH. Anyway, TROUBLE is quaint robust fun and just like a hybrid of THE QUIET MAN and their own truly superb Americana drama made in 1956 COME NEXT SPRING and.... LISBON.

U.S. Air Corps Major Lance Lansing (Forrest Tucker) returns to Scotland after WWII to a small glen, where he makes his home due to the laird, Sanin Mengues (Orson Welles), a wealthy South American who's returned to his ancestors' land with his daughter, Marilla (Margaret Lockwood).

Everyone in the glen tries to persuade Mengues to bring piece to their homes, only to have Lansing and Parlan (Victor McLaglen), the Mengues foreman, get in a fight together.

This was listed in my UK TV schedule as a good film and they have it a three-star rating. They made it sound like it was a film about Orson Welles visiting Scotland after the war, which is far from the actual plot.

Welles really chews up the scenery - in a bad way. He's funny but also quite annoying and seems out of place. Lockwood is given little to do but be pretty. Tucker is so-so.

I was disappointed because I was expecting something entertaining and "classy," whereas instead I got a boring, dull and sappy "nice" movie without any real positive traits.

It's not terrible, it's just not very good.

Republic Pictures's biggest hit was "The Quiet Man", John Ford's Irish blarneyfest. Two years later its writer, Frank S Nugent, tried to work that magic on the Scottish Highlands. But "Trouble in the Glen" only had the prolific hack Herbert Wilcox at the helm, and his winning streak with Anna Neagle had gone phfft.

Lensed in sludgy brown Trucolor, "Trouble in the Glen" plays like an Ealing comedy sans asperity, fading quickly into the Celtic twilight from which Brigadoon rises once a century. Orson Welles is a returning laird whose years in South America presumably explain his swarthy skin tones if not his blue-grey bouffant wig. Welles was already a podgy Hollywood outcast wandering the European co-production badlands, scrounging, spending and sometimes shooting: he was between "Othello" and "Mr Arkadin" at this juncture. He relies on his magnificent organ voice and eyes that gleam in the gloom (as in "Jane Eyre") to sustain his turn as a tyrant, at odds both with his glenfolk tenantry and with a roving gang of tinkers. The head "tink" is the terminally fuddled Victor McLaglen, another Ford veteran.

Stuffing casts with faded US talent to win a Stateside circuit release was standard operating procedure for the struggling Britflick biz of the early 1950s. Besides Citizen Kane and Sgt Quincannon, "Trouble in the Glen" toplines the colourless Forrest Tucker. Like John Wayne in "The Quiet Man", Nugent makes him a Yank on a sentimental journey. Like Wayne, he banters or scraps with the locals and tames a spirited filly: Maggie Lockwood, the laird's daughter, in reality four years older than Orson! Her cut-glass accent matches neither Welles's nor the area's Scotch English. There is also a winsome, bedridden little girl for Tucker to set on her feet.

The subplot concerns unjust suspicions that the tinkers stole a deer. Has there ever been a movie in which gypsies or traveling people actually did the crimes of which they are accused?

Quite entertaining in a 1950's style.

Classed a comedy but not a rib-tickler.

Orson plays the Laird, a wealthy South American. Of course he comes over as .......Orson Welles.

There is a smattering of bagpipes, and the usual strained Scots accents, irritating or part of the charm - depending on your views. Mischief, poaching, local rivalries, an invalid girl and Margaret Lockwood all thrown into the mix. (Ms Lockwood looking particularly vivacious.)

Location Note: As Forrest Tucker arrives in the "Scottish" village in an early scene, the live location is actually in front of the Church House Inn, in Harberton, near Totnes, South Devon.

Although Orson Welles is prominently featured on the VHS box cover, Forrest Tucker and Margaret Lockwood are the leads here, together again after LAUGHING ANNE. Republic leading man Tucker headlined several solid westerns and war films throughout the 1950's, but this is far from his best. Definitely a poor man's THE QUIET MAN, as noted earlier, this film pales in comparison, only competently directed by Herbert Wilcox and featuring very little action---the 'climactic' fight leaves a lot to be desired, and the story moves along at a snail's pace. Welles hams it up delightfully, but he's barely on screen for ten minutes.

Forgettable film; there's really not much going on here. Fans of THE QUIET MAN may be interested in this lesser work by the same author, but if you're looking for lots of comedy OR action, you'll be disappointed. To see Tucker and Lockwood in a more interesting film, check out LAUGHING ANNE (1954).