Anyone who disagrees with the assertion that My Darling Clementine and The Searchers are just about the best films ever made is banned for life from this site with immediate effect. Nonetheless John Ford made his share of turkeys. Exhibit number one is his version of Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars in which the Easter Rising is made into a romantic melodrama.
Still it’s not without interest. In was made just twenty years after the event and James Connolly is portrayed sympathetically. Outside Ireland Connolly’s Marxism would have been unknown to most of the audience but it defies belief that Ford was not aware of where Connolly stood ideologically.
This badly edited little compilation show the Citizen’s Army led by Constance Markievicz marching to hear Connolly speak; an exchange in which a British soldier is told that “the only duty of a socialist is the emancipation of the working class; Connolly’s execution and a passionate defence of irregular warfare against superior forces.
It’s an interesting curio and while Ford didn’t always have a firm grasp of the difference between oppressed and oppressor in some of his films he leaves no doubt about which side he’s on in this one.
Liam redux 
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