The Molly Maguires (1970)

The Molly Maguires is a criminally underseen and very underrated film based off some little known history of this great country. This film is all about social justice as the events of the film take place before the time of labor unions as we know them today and in a time where the early unions were frowned upon. But this film does a good job in bringing those issues to light. This film is beautifully shot, is well-acted, and has a great score by Henry Mancini.Martin Ritt's film is about the leader of the Molly Maguires named Jack Kehoe, a radical group of Irish American miners who fight against the oppressive mine owners, and his interactions with Pinkerton detective, James McParland who is assigned to go undercover and infiltrate the secret society.This film doesn't have a big cast, but it's well-acted. Sean Connery is one of the greatest actors ever and as usual, brings about his A-game as the leader of the Maguires. Richard Harris is also excellent as the low-key detective who sometimes questions his motives. The lovely Samantha Eggar also does a good job as Harris's love interest.Overall, The Molly Maguires is a fantastic piece of historical fiction and one that people should learn about. I grew up and went to school in the area, so this film would hold dear to me. I'm very surprised it was a box office failure due to the pedigree of the cast. It talks about a very hectic time in our history and essentially the beginning of labor unions. I rate this film 9/10.

While reading some reviews here one reviewer pointed out that "this is a film that wouldn't be made today". How sad yet true a statement indeed! This film is rich in history and politics, two subjects that (seemingly) don't interest todays movie-going public. What does it say about a culture when the people have become so detached to their own history?The Molly Maguires was filmed at the very beginning of what I think is the greatest American movie decade ever, and I'm not alone in that opinion as the most recent (2007) AFI list of the top 100 films of all time contains more from the 70s than any other single decade (19!). As if hungover from the 60s, this post-revolutionary period gave birth to many great young directors making films that had an independent and political feel...this was the end of the old "studio system" of Hollywood, and was the beginning of the new independent film movement in America that still exists to this day.This film really succeeds in capturing the atmosphere of a bygone era. This is one of those movies that you just relax (maybe on a rainy afternoon) and let wash over you...appreciate the cinematography (notice the excellent tracking shot of the miners walking out of the mine after planting the explosives near the beginning) and fine acting by all involved. When I was done watching this I wanted to know more about the Molly Maguires. Is that a complaint? Actually I think its a compliment. A good story should leave you wanting to know more about the subject matter.Jack Kehoe (Sean Connery) is the leader of a secret cult of Irish coalminers in 1870s Pennsylvania, James Mckenna (Richard Harris) is an undercover detective sent in to capture the secret cult known as the Molly Maguires, who has lost a strike and begun committing acts of sabotage and murder against the Mining company. This film is rich in period detail and quite engrossing, this is the kind of film you want to watch again and see what dialog you might have missed as the Irish dialects are rather thick. This is also a violent film, but the violence is raw and sudden...believable, not stylishly choreographed and seemingly pandering to the audience like in todays movies. The early days of the American labor movement were quite violent indeed, whether our public schools teach it or not.Mckenna is a very ambitious man and makes its clear to us early on that he will do whatever he has to for career advancement. As he says..."I'm tired of being on the bottom looking up all the time, I want to look down". However, as he gets inside the miners and develops a bond with Kehoe, we see that despite his personal motives, he has actually started to care about these miners. In a poignant scene when the Molly Maguires are bent on desperate retaliation, Kehoe fervently tries to talk them out of it and he's serious (as he admits later to his handler), and we in the audience can tell. But the Molly Maguires are destined for self-destruction. Not even an (unknown to them) enemy can dissuade them from their fate. So this isn't a feel good type of movie. The conclusion doesn't necessarily leave a good taste and might not be that pat ending that modern movie-goers are used to seeing. This is the essence of real history however, the labor struggles in America seldom had a happy ending, and though at times it seemed like labor eventually won, here lately it sure doesn't look that way. Things aren't quite as clear as we like... the line between the good and the bad is often quite fuzzy. The Molly MaGuires is a perfect example of this....it is also a great example of beautiful filmmaking. This may not quite be an American classic, but its real close.One last thing...I really got some great insight reading the other reviews here on this film, they were very interesting, thanks.

I love the movie. I think it's partly because some of my relatives including my father worked in the coal mines. And also part of the movie was filmed near where I grew up. It is really historical. I also liked all of the actors in the movie.When I was a boy. I remember seeing the choppers carrying the crew to other locations in the area to film other scenes. It was really neat. My wife knows some people that played extra parts in the film. Actually it was filmed at Eckley Miners Village. Near Hazleton Pennsylvania. It has become a museum that is open to the public. When they did the filming for the movie. The had to renovate some of the buildings. Eckley is an actual mining town from the 1800's.

According to the Films of Sean Connery, the genesis of The Molly Maguires was a visit to the set of Director Martin Ritt;s Hombre in which Connery's then wife Diane Cilento was in the cast. Ritt had the idea for The Molly Maguires back then and asked Connery if he'd give him the commitment. Connery was intrigued and said yes. But it took over four years to get the project rolling.The Molly Maguires has the ring of authenticity to it because Martin Ritt chose to shoot it in an almost abandoned Pennsylvania coal town of Ecksley. Filming the story in a place where the Molly Maguires were active lends a lot of credibility to the film. The Mollys were a secret cell within the Catholic fraternal society of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The Irish immigrants spread all over America and a good deal of them arrived in the Pennsylvania coal country where they became miners. A trade not unknown in Ireland as that country has considerable deposits of the stuff. The workers were terribly exploited, having to live in the company town, buy at the company store, and pay for damaged equipment. That together with the health problems we know now about in the mining industry.There was no organized labor movement yet and the Mollys were at times the only protections those miners had. They'd be considered terrorists now, but an important thing to remember is that unlike today's terrorists, their acts of violence were never random.One thing I did like was the fact that the company policeman were Protestant and Welsh. That was the generation who were the previous people in the mines. The next generation of coal miners were from Eastern Europe, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. The ethnic conflicts are quite explicit in this film.Richard Harris plays James McParlan another Irish immigrant sent by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to infiltrate and destroy the Mollys. Connery is Jack Kehoe the leader of them and very suspicious of Harris when he first arrives to work at the mines. The story as told in the film sticks pretty close to the truth of what happened in Pennsylvania in the 1870s. Informers are not a group that's looked up to in any culture, but the Irish traditionally do have a special disdain for them.The film is a clash between two men, Harris who wants to rise in class and willing to sell anyone out to do it and Connery whose methods maybe wrong, but has the genuine interest of his fellow miners at heart. After the business in Pennsylvania is concluded and after the action of this film, the real McParlan rose high in the Pinkerton agency, but his name was an anathema among his own people.The Molly Maguires is a well crafted piece of cinema that unfortunately failed to find an audience back in 1970. Today it's considered a masterpiece and deservedly so.