GYPSY GIRL (SKY WEST AND CROOKED)
UK, 1965, 102 minutes, Colour.
Hayley Mills, Ian Mc Shane, Laurence Naismith, Geoffrey Bayldon, Annette Crosbie.
Directed by John Mills.
Gypsy Girl (Sky West And Crooked) is quite an attractive film, directed by John Mills. The film was rather a family affair for the screenplay was written by Mary Hayley Bell, Mills' wife. Hayley Mills appears in the central role. The film is one of those charming provincial English glimpses of special characters, a girl who is quiet, somewhat retarded and who must blossom out. She does so when she meets a gypsy portrayed by Ian Mc Shane. The film is full of local colour and atmosphere and is quite attractive. The film also has serious tones underlying it.
1. For what audience was this film made? Why was it made? Entertainment? A moral?
2. How enjoyable was the film? How did Hayley Mills' personality contribute to the enjoyment? The use of colour, music, song, location photography, old~ English traditions of a village?
3. How well could an audience identify with Bridle? How attractive a personality was she? In her relationship to her family? Her mother? In what she did in the village, in her suffering, in the unreal world in which she lived? In her response to what was pretty in life? What was the purpose of her life? A suffering figure? The insight of someone who is slightly mad?
4. How well portrayed was the village and its life? The children themselves? The vicar and his lack of a flock? The vicar and his influence on people? His wife? Dacres and his influence on the village? Bridle's mother, the irnpact of the burying of the animals in the cemetery? The doctor and his protest, the wives etc.? How real was all this?
5. The importance of death in the film, graves and cemeteries? Bridle's flowers on Julian's grave. The reality of Julian's death? Bridle's forgetting of this and yet her devotion to Julian. The impact of Dacres on Bridle? Did he have any right to frighten her and tell her the truth? The result of his telling the truth? The gunshot and Bridle's fear?
6. How important was the theme of fear in the film? How afraid was Bridle? How afraid was Dacres? How afraid was Bridie's mother? The impact of so much death in the film? Julian's, Bridie's mother, the animals and the cemetery? What atmosphere of death did the film have and what did the atmosphere contribute?
7. How attractive a hero was Roibin? The outsider, the gypsy background, people's suspicions of gypsies, his devotion to Bridle and his love for her? The impulse to save her, his wanting to keep her, what impact did his caring for her have on him? The relationship between the two and the growing of love? The threat of being an outsider and having to leave Bridie?
8. What insight into the gypsy life did the film give? The villagers' suspicions of gypsies? The gypsies' fear of the villagers? The reaction at the end when the message was falsified?
9. The importance of the vicar for the film? His confrontation of the villagers? His confrontation of Bridle about the burying of the animals? His visit to Bridle's mother? His intervention then in helping Bridle to find Roibin? The humour of his bicycle ride? (The relationship to Romeo and Juliet and the friar helping the lovers?)
10. How emotional was this film? Bridie as an emotional person and needing love and care? Her upset at losing Roibin and the impact this had on the film?
11. How happy was the ending when she found him again? What future would she have with him? Would they marry happily?
12. How real a film was this? How happy a film? How contrived? Did this matter? What insight into people did the film offer?
