Green Grow the Rushes (film)

Plot

Three British government bureaucrats arrive in Kent to inquire as to why the coastal Anderida marsh is not being cultivated. The reason is that most of the local people know about or are involved in the liquor smuggling scheme operated by Captain Biddle and his accomplice Robert (Richard Burton), who is posing as a fisherman when he is seen by the newspaper editor and his journalist daughter Meg.

Robert persuades them not to report it in the newspaper, and tells Biddle about his encounter with them. Biddle does not like the idea of any local "Lily White" (woman) knowing about their illegal activity; he was once married to a Lily White. The smugglers’ next cargo gets caught in a violent storm, and their boat washes inland, settling in the meadow of a farmer whose wife Polly happens to be Biddle’s ex-wife.

Cast

Background

Based on the 1949 novel Green Grow the Rushes by Howard Clewes. The title, at least, is inspired by the 18th-century folk song "Green Grow the Rushes, O", in which each of the 12 verses after the first has the penultimate line, "Two, two, the lily-white boys, clothed all in green O."

Production

The film was filmed on the coastal Romney Marsh around the town of New Romney.

Subsequent release

The film was re-released in 1954 under the alternative title Brandy Ashore.