The Long Gray Line

source: The Long Gray Line

This beautiful, offbeat story offered Tyrone Power a chance to show new facets of his acting ability -- especially in comedy -- to his audience: He is funny, very warm and tender, a masterful but understanding leader, and a man so embedded in family traditions that fitting into West Point -- which reeks with tradition -- is a natural for him. He and Maureen O'Hara play off each other as if they'd been doing it for years. O'Hara also, by the way, gets a rare chance at this point in her career to show her comedic talents, and her brilliant performance makes obvious the reason why John Ford adopted her as a favorite and a member of his stock company. The supporting cast -- for the most part -- measures up to the very high standards set by the leads, especially Donald Crisp, Ward Bond, O'Hara's brother Charles Fitzsimons, and the huge cast of excellent young actors who play so many cadets, well known and otherwise. The only fly in the ointment is the completely wooden but very pretty Robert Francis, whose film career was extremely short and totally undistinguished by any acting at all. "The Long Gray Line" is a film worth seeing again and again!!!

The Long Gray Line is not of John Ford's great films,such as the Seachers, How Green Was My Valley or She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, but its one that makes one feel with the heart. i happen to be a fan of Ford's minor gems, Three Godfathers, Donovan's Reef and Judge Priest, and The Long Gray Line is fine one. Some modern movie critics dismiss this film and others as "corn" or "dated", but what is "dated" about love, duty and honor. Ford's films about these "dated" are still shineing examples of American film making. I would rather watch this wonderful moive, over and over, then that bleak film of last year-American Beauty. I happy admit that I cry at the end of this film.

That is a propaganda movie (about the historic military academy of West Point), but even making propaganda Ford, with her caracteristic way of understanding the Army, the life and dead, and his unfergottable sense of humour, was just a master. And he was capable of doing moving to the spectators. Much better that you was thinking before see the film. There where hear goods actors too, even the handsome fellow Tyrone Power. Maureen O'Hara always was fine under the John Ford orders and hear too. The film is superior to others propagandistic ones made by this time. And may be one of the best.

John Ford keeps safely to the right during the late McCarthy era with this mawkish tale of West Point as seen through the eyes of an Irish immigrant. I remember really liking this movie when I saw it as a kid, but as I grew older, I saw how manipulated and manipulating the film is. It might as well be called THE LEPRECHAUN WHO RAN WEST POINT. Ford could always please the crowd, and that's what he did here, evidently paying compliments to everyone he knew during World War II by making West Point a Holy Land of military heros. If you like tear-jerking schmaltz, this is one to see. If you want realism, fohgetaboutit!

You could call "The Long Grey Line" an affectionate tribute by one American institution to another: John Ford to West Point. All the Fordian elements, unashamed sentimentality, boisterious comedy, stark tragedy, are all here, and Ford and his actors convey them all beautifully. And what actors! Tyrone Power finally proved that he could act in his moving portrayal of Martin Maher, a real-life West Point legend who started out as a fresh-off-the-boat waiter and wound up as the Academy's much-venerated Master of the Sword. Maher died in 1961 at age eighty-four, just as an era he represented was dying, too. Maureen O'Hara gives her usual strong portrayal as his devoted wife, likewise Donald Crisp as his father. Two of the most beloved members of the Ford stock company are here, too. Ward Bond playes Captain Koehler, the previous Master of the Sword who takes young Martin under his wing. And Harry Carey, Jr. has a good spot as the young Dwight Eisenhower, who was going bald even then and trying to stop it with hair-restorer. A military "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" this may be, but as a heartfelt, human tribute to the Point and the men who made it, as well as good, overlooked Ford, this film is a hidden treasure.

One of the best pictures ever starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara. Marty Maher comes to West Point and the years just pile on. We see Marty learn the ropes and become a leader among men. He marries his Mary O'Donnell who acts mute at first. O'Hara is just a joy to watch on the screen. Their life at the Point is difficult but ever so fulfilling. There is sadness when their child dies at birth and when war comes, Marty's best friend is killed, leaving a widow (Betsy Palmer) and young son. Of course, the son will go to the Point. Tyrone Power is just fabulous here with a superb Irish accent and emotional appeal as Marty. O'Hara, in an excellent performance, succumbs years later to heart disease, leaving her beloved Marty all alone. The supporting cast is fine. Veteran Oscar winner Donald Crisp is wonderful as the father and Palmer is memorable in the scene where her son says to her: "It has been a wonderful day for Marty." Her reply, "It has been a wonderful life for Marty!" How poignant. A great movie pulling out all the stops. Well worth the handkerchiefs that the viewer will need. Rest in peace Betsy Palmer: Yours was a wonderful career.

This movie is one of John Ford's best. I have seen this movie many times, and it only improves with age. A truly heart warming story of a man who came from Ireland and found a new home at West Point, home of our oldest Military Academy. If you like tradition and biographies, this movie is one that you can't help but to love. The only bad thing about the movie is that it is not shown enough and doesn't get the credit it deserves.

I had to look twice at the date - 1955 - as, in almost every sense, "The Long Grey Line" seems to belong to an earlier period - a decade before, I would have said. But then this is a John Ford film and by 1955 he had already been around for quite a while. It is a sentimental biopic of the "Goodbye Mr Chips" variety, based on "a true story", we are told at the outset, of a West Point veteran looking back with affection on a lifetime's devotion to that venerable institution. The central character is played by Tryone Power sporting a fruity Irish accent that seems modelled on Orson Welles's in "The Lady from Shanghai". His father is played by Donald Crisp who, in John Ford's hands seems equally at home whether playing a Welsh or Irish parent and, for good measure, there is Maureen O'Hara to supply the romantic interest, doing her "The Quiet Man" stuff once again but not nearly as effectively. Add to this Hollywood's '30's and '40's obsession with the good dying young, particularly babies after difficult births and young men going off to war and you have the classic ingredients of the cinema's Victorian age, bearing in mind that as a comparatively young art it had a lot of catching up to do. Apart from some doses of blarney early on there is little to suggest that this is a Ford film. It could just as well have been made by one of those stylistically anonymous chaps like Mervyn LeRoy or Michael Curtiz. There is not even much drinking; most of the knockabout stuff takes place in a swimming pool. Strangely enough it is some of the more Fordian scenes early on that are the most tiresome, particularly those involving broken crockery and Maureen O'Hara doing a silence act. It gets rather better when it arrives at the more serious stuff of the loss of loved ones, which does not say very much for one of Ford's weaker efforts. On one point however it scores a small place in movie history. It is one of the only films of the '50's to use the Cinemascope format intelligently. Ford obviously knew that to make the system work requires a sense of horizontal flow and what better than endless shots of men marching on parade. Never mind the ennui!

Could be Ford's worst. It is a biopic of some Irish guy named Marty Maher, but after 138 minutes I still couldn't figure out what made him special enough to be the subject of a feature film. In real life, Mr. Maher may well have been a fine man with many attainments, but in this movie, aside from giving kindly advice to cadets on a couple of occasions, his one real achievement is that of being Irish. This may explain why Ford dwells so insistently on Marty's Irishness. I can't even figure out what exactly Marty did at West Point for fifty years. It had something to do with athletics, but that's as much as we know. The reason he merits being saluted by a parade of cadets at the end, playing (of course) Irish tunes in march time, appears to be that he was a nice guy with a colorful accent and everybody liked him. Not exactly the stuff of drama! Ford's involvement in all things Irish is much in evidence. Marty's wife is the stereotypical colleen, with flaming red hair, a flaring temper, flashing eyes, and a thick brogue. We are all asked to share in Ford's delight with this. As for Marty's father, how the devil did he manage to get in good with the brass at West Point and become something of a fixture there himself? And why does he persist in dressing like a leprechaun? We are treated to multiple scenes of cadets drilling, being drilled, and marching on parade, with perhaps more military songs being played than ever were heard in a single movie. In the end, there is a prolonged sequence with hundreds of cadets marching in honor of Marty while he stands there saluting. Enough to make you squirm with embarrassment. A really bad movie.