Under Milk Wood (1972 film)


Under Milk Wood is a 1972 British drama film directed by Andrew Sinclair and based on the 1954 radio play Under Milk Wood by the Welsh writer Dylan Thomas, commissioned by the BBC and later adapted for the stage. It featured performances from many well-known actors as the residents of the fictional Welsh fishing village of Llareggub including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Siân Phillips, David Jason, Glynis Johns, Victor Spinetti, Ruth Madoc, Angharad Rees, Ann Beach, Vivien Merchant and Peter O'Toole.

Cast

Under Milk Wood was Sinclair's first film and he was able to sign up Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor to the project with the help of O'Toole, Sinclair's long-term friend. Burton and Taylor were paid £10,000 each. Elizabeth Taylor was only available for three days of filming, which at her request took place in London. At £600, her three dresses took up half of the costume budget.
It was the only film in which Burton, Taylor and O’Toole appeared together. It was shot primarily on location in Wales and has since acquired a reputation among aficionados as a cult movie. "The film, beautifully photographed and spoken, casts the brooding spell of Thomas’ verse in its reconstruction of the seaside village and the daily round of its inhabitants", wrote Andrew Sinclair in the International Herald Tribune.
The filming took place in Lower Town, Fishguard, Wales. The choice of location caused protest from some in Laugharne, the town forty miles away where Thomas had written the play; an official there said, "To film Under Milk Wood anywhere but Laugharne would be as absurd as filming James Joyce's The Dubliners in Birmingham."

Release

The film was not a box office success and the main stars wrote it off as a tax loss.

Reception

The film received polite but unenthusiastic notices. In The Times, John Russell Taylor wrote:
Taylor's conclusion about the film was: "the final effect is to leave one wondering what, precisely, is the point of the exercise". In The Guardian, Derek Malcolm wrote:

Legacy

In December 2012 the director of the film, Andrew Sinclair, gave its rights to the people of Wales. In 2014 the film was digitally remastered and re-released to celebrate the centenary of Thomas's birth.