Girl with Green Eyes (1964)

Seeing this film after 40-years reminded me how good Peter Finch was – just about the most worldly, in control guy you could hope to see on the screen. He seemed to get better looking as he got older, although he showed every one of his years.Rita Tushingham got all the raves at the time, and she was a unique presence around the early 60's; it's easy to see why she had an impact on the critics, she had a look with those big eyes and mobile features – she seemed to literally devour life in her early roles.Set in Ireland, Kate Brady (Rita Tushingham), a young country girl experiencing life for the first time in the city, has an affair with a much older man: a writer, Eugene Gaillard (Peter Finch). However, there are problems; he doesn't want to get too involved after a failed marriage, and she has inhibitions due to a suspicious father and her upbringing as a strict Roman Catholic.This was Desmond Davis first film as director, and possibly he was influenced by the French New Wave where everything had the feeling it was photographed by accident with plenty of sharp cutting. Some of the mood changes in the film are also a bit sudden as well. When Kate's father and friends arrive from the village to save her from Eugene, the film gets an attack of the John Fords with the whole sequence treated as broad comedy with even broader Irish characters.However there is assurance with the way the scenes of Kate and Eugene are handled. Kate although sensitive, is outspoken and often at odds with the older Eugene, she is a strong character and not as naive as he seems to think she is. Eugene makes allowances for Kate's youth, but is inclined to avoid confrontation – their exchanges are often intense, but also breezy and witty, with the odd insight thrown in.The bedroom scenes were quite frank for the times, even if they are of the sheets around the shoulders variety. John Addison's score has a wistfulness that portends the end of the affair, a sentiment echoed in the script. At one point Eugene observes, "There's no always in human relations … people die, change, outgrow their best friends, nothing's permanent".Awkward touches aside, this is still an engaging film. It has two charismatic stars; a touch of sadness and a life-goes-on ending that feels about right.

Girl With Green Eyes is directed by Desmond Davis, has a screenplay by Edna O'Brien based on her own novel and stars Peter Finch, Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave.In 1960's Dublin shy Kate Brady (Rita Tushingham)lives with her best friend Baba (Lynn Redgrave). Baba is an outgoing party girl, whereas Kate is looking for one man to share her heart, soul and life with. She soon finds a man she feels a strong connection to, this man is Eugene Gallard(Peter Finch)a middle aged local landowner. He is attracted to her and the pair tentatively begin a friendship which later turns to romance.Gallard is a practical man however, he knows that the difference in their age may present problems at a later date. He also knows that what seems certain today isn't always certain tomorrow. He tries to tell Kate that what they have may not last but she insists it will. Their relationship soon suffers the wrath of her father who is shocked that she is living with this man unmarried. Will they stay together or not?Finch is excellent as a quiet man who knows his current happiness may not last but will enjoy every second that he can. Tushingham is all wide eyed innocence and soul, she's such a brilliant actress and always conveys so much just through a look.Redgrave is a riot as the boisterous Baba and provides a great deal of comic relief. One of her best early roles.The scenes between Gallard and Kate are tender and moving, you can see in his eyes the love he has for her and in hers the love and affection she has for him.There is nothing disgusting about the couples age gap, you believe their love and I like how they don't instantly become romantically involved, that happens much later and we see how shy and nervous Kate is about their first time together(as any inexperienced woman would be).A beautiful story of love and how it's not always as straightforward as some may think it to be.

I ordered this on video through my overseas mailing service and it was easy to get a hold of to rent. Starring Rita Tushingham and Peter Finch, and based upon a novel by Edna O'Brien. My mail order contact told me he was one of Rita Tushingham's old boyfriends, which impressed me very much and for some reason made me biased toward liking the film.The film is set in Dublin and the Irish countryside nearby, where the people are, shall we say, strict about certain matters. Tushingham plays an impressionable young girl bored with her life at home on an Irish farm. She moves to Dublin and shares a flat with a best friend (wonderfully played by Lyn Redgrave). She meets and becomes attracted to Finch's sophisticated author. They have a very touching romance, much to the chagrin of the local Irish louts who consider the pair as deeply suspicious and sinners in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church. Girl With Green Eyes was shot on location in Ireland and has a wonderful feeling for the people even when they are being intolerant and brutish.Tushingham and Finch are both appealing and bring a wonderful reality to their parts. The fate of their romance is left up in the air as Finch decides to go back to his wife and Tushingham refusing to go back to live on her father's farm, set on living her own life. In between, their relationship is portrayed with a great amount of tenderness and it is a lovely film for those of us who are romantics at heart.Peter Finch is photographed in a particularly flattering way. He looks spectacularly handsome in this, with a swathe of grey hair and a face that has seen a lot of living. And what a marvellous voice he had, it is totally unlike any other. And lo and behold, he was also an Australian. 'Girl with Green Eyes' is a small but precious gem to be treasured and absolutely recommended if you're feeling less pre-occupied with matters of the mind, and more with matters of the heart.

Lovely, lyrical, bittersweet romance with young Rita Tushingham as a simple, convent-reared shop girl in Ireland who forms a relationship with a much older man, an intellectual, worldly agnostic (and married, but separated), living in isolation on a farm, writing books, in a finely wrought performance by Peter Finch. Tushingham and her chatterbox roommate, nicely played by Lynn Redgrave, casually meet on Finch's farm. Tushingham finds him attractive, with age difference no object, and invites him to tea in the city. Finch, somewhat world weary and wary of getting himself into an affair with a young, innocent girl, succumbs to her persistence and after a few meetings they consummate their relationship tenderly in scenes of gentle mutual affection. But, eventually, with family and priest strongly admonishing her for her "adultery" and ultimately Finch's withdrawal, Tushingham moves to England and finds relationships with men her own age and philosophically accepts the end of one, memorable phase of her life and the beginning of another. But this is not a plot-driven film – it's all character. As a sagacious film critic said a long time ago of another actress in another film (Audrey Hepburn in "A Nun's Story"), the theater is all in her face and it's Tushingham's wonderfully wistful performance, all manifested in those big, expressive eyes, that is the central and salient feature of this fine film, and which gives it its special quality.Marc Feldman 3-8-2005