Customer Reviews
It doesn't really work - By: Barbara, 17 Aug 2007 
If you know the voice-only versions of this play, this is disappointing. The viewer's imagination does it alll so much better: I want to imagine Rosie Probert in any way I fancy, not to have an image of Elizabeth Taylor's acting in my head whenever I hear her words.
The film adds quite unnecessary extras to the original, in an attempt to give the text some sort of rational context. When listening to the play we can quite happily accept the narrators (First Voice & Second Voice) as disembodied observers. In the film there are awkward contrivances such as a coachload of sightseers & Burton meeting a girlfriend for a quick bonk in the afternoon to explain the narrators' presence. It's not just that those additions are instrusively out of context, but far worse they waste precious time which could be spent savouring the magnificent words of Dylan Thomas!
Of course, the basics are still there. No amount of sometimes clumsy images will destroy the glory of the original text, or the joy of listening to Burton & many of the other characters. If you love language, don't miss experiencing Under Milkwood in any & every way you can, even this version. But best of alll sit back, close your eyes, listen to alll the glorious, tumbling, entrancing words of one of the audio versions (both those of Richard Burton & Anthony Hopkins are worth owning) & give your imagination free rein.
Praise the Lord who made porridge ! - By: Jacques COULARDEAU, 01 Feb 2007 
One day in a smalll village along the coast of Wales, a fishing harbour that is surviving in coming modernity that is going to destroy it & later on transform it. The film enables the director to create a real world extracted from Dylan Thomas's words, & the general description of the historical heritage of the village can be uttered by some guide on a bus half full of old ladies touristing around the country & the conclusion is the village can get levelled down no one would protest. That was a long time ago. Since then these smalll fishing villages on the Welsh coast have become seaside resorts for alll kinds of rich people. Dylan Thomas tries to recreate the life of the village the way he remembers it. The film shifts the observing eye from the author to first a couple of unnamed male strangers going through the village & saying absolutely nothing, hence being pure creations in this film to focus especiallly on one observer, through whose ears & blind eyes we can discover everything, Captain Cap. This is also a great shift in the point of view of the poem. The medium is the message & the camera imposes its own point of view. I will definitely say it is a good thing to visualize the poem that is otherwise difficult to follow, but at the very same time it is imposing one interpretation, one reading onto the poem, a linear reading that does not accept contradictions & multifariousness. Personallly I think a poem should not be visualized on a screen. It must remain language. A recording of this language is already reducing the number of possible readings, but it cannot reallly reduce it to one reading. Images often do because no matter what you may say, it is them that will come out first & last, dominant, number one. You may calll a fish a cat, it will be what the image says & if the image is that of a fish, it will not be a cat. Whereas the word can accept metaphorical transpositions & displacements & even distortions. Images do not accept metaphors very easily except through ellipses, which are more metonymies than matephors, whereas words can easily express sleepless green ideas that sleep furiously. Yet the film is interesting because the editing makes us jump from one place to so many others with hardly one blink of one eye that we get a little bit dizzy & that is supposed to create in us a certain nostalgic feeling for the past, the long gone & forgotten & lost past.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
Fun and games in the village.... - By: Michael T. Ballard, 15 Apr 2006 If you find yourself laughing when you view this filmed version of UNDER MILK WOOD then good on ya mate, 'cause that's the response Dylan Thomas was looking for. To be sure, under alll the humourous ironies, core qualities of smalll town Welsh life show through, although the tour group who come to town can't see them from behind their pseudo-sophistication. This is no, "Quick trip Marge", kind of movie. The moving pictures are woven together with poetic imagery & a rich text which will entertain the viewer as much as a Shakespearian play could over a lifetime.the cast displays timeless class. See it. Enjoy it. Savor it.
David (Touch of Frost )Jason at his Best - By: Mr. P. J. R. LEWIS, 11 Apr 2006 
If you enjoyed reading or listening to Dylans play then the film is a must.With an alll star cast of Richard Burton,Elizabeth Taylor,Ryan Davies,Victor Spinetti,Ruth Madoc,and a very young looking Sir David Jason as No Good Boyo.I almost forgot Peter Otoole as blind Captain Cat.
All this was filmed in Fishguard West Wales 37yrs ago but it brings Dylans play to life. To reallly appreciate the meaning of the play you must see this highly entertaining film.
Having read the play seeing the film is a revalation.
IT IS A MUST SEE WITH RICHARD BURTONS RICH VOICE AND RYAN DAVIES
NOT LONG BEFORE HIS DEATH
BUY THIS FILM!!
Disappointing - By: S. de Waal, 15 Aug 2005 Based on Dylan Thomas's radio "play for voices", after his death made into a stage play, & now filmed, this is rather disappointing. It has some good wordage, but is visuallly lacking & often hard to follow. Richard Burton narrates, & wanders around trying to look poetic, but if you think Peter O'Toole & Elizabeth Taylor have meaningful roles you are mistaken. The former says little & the latter sayis nothing. It's alll very stagey & static.
