Country Australia Language English language | Based on play by R.C. Sheriff Release date 27 November 1963 | |
Production company American Broadcasting Company Similar One More River, Quartet, The Night My Number Came Up, Trio, The Road Back | ||
The Long Sunset is a 1963 Australian TV movie based on a play by R.C. Sheriff. It starred John Bell and was directed by Colin Dean It was recorded live.
Contents
The play had been filmed by the BBC in 1958.
Plot
A Roman family during the last days of Roman Britain.
Cast
Reception
The critic from the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that:
The gingerly stiffness of dialogue and manner that seems to overcome most dramatists and actors when they are playing at history was seldom absent from the performance of "The Long Sunset" shown on ABN Channel 2 last night. The characters in R. C. Sherriff's play about the ending of Roman rule in Britain are in any case incorrigible cardboard, but Colin Dean's production, despite a few visual ingenuities, seemed to emphasise rather than minimise their creaking unreality. The Romans either intoned phrases of hollow nobility and stoicism or were querulous and fearful; their British allies in the fight against the encroaching Saxons merely slouched and growled. None of them was more than spasmodically interesting. Henry Gilbert as a Roman clinging determinedly to his adopted land seemed to be taking part in a very slow and stately pageant. James Condon was conscientiously surly and thicktongued as Arthur (here shown as a shaggy local chieftain and not in his legendary metamorphosis) without being really commanding, and John Bell and John Faassen were largely wasted in dull parts. Guy le Claire's Caledonian slave was slightly more convincing. The play would have seemed better if the performance had shown more evidence of the sort of rehearsal that allows actors to develop characterisations as well as merely learn lines and moves, but even with devoted attention it is not likely to have much more in its favour than the romance of its historical idea.