Young Cassidy

Started by John Ford, who retired because of illness, this is an intelligent, powerfully cast, if slightly too pretty-pretty looking biography of Sean O'Casey. Taylor is excellent in the title role, digging ditches to support his mother (Robson) and sickly sister (Phillips), screwing his way through Julie Christie's chorus girl and Maggie Smith's demure librarian, dropping in on Michael Redgrave's WB Yeats and Edith Evans' literary sponsor, and still finding time to pen a line or two and support revolutionary causes. Ending with the first night of The Plough and the Stars, which Ford filmed in 1936, this undervalued picture deserves a look.