Under Milk Wood (1973)

Excellent but underrated film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Under Milk Wood is seriously one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. Virtually the entire movie is set to Richard Burton's narration of Dylan Thomas's prose. Most of the scenes are an overlay to his voice; the people in the scenes don't generally speak for themselves. The scenes themselves are extremely strange. To start, Richard Burton and his odd-looking companion walk the streets of a seafaring town at night, and as they look upon residents' houses or shops, Richard Burton tells the audience a little about the townspeople, or what they're dreaming about. There's a man sleeping next to a skeleton dreaming of his mother, a woman dreaming of her cobbler lover, and a blind retired sea captain who remembers his former crew and love interest.If you know Dylan Thomas's writings, you'll know what to expect. Every Christmas, I watch A Child's Christmas in Wales, so I'm used to his ramblings about the residents of a small seaside town and his colorful descriptions, but if you've never heard his words before, you'll probably find the sentences in this movie very strange. Honestly, if Richard Burton can't save the movie, it's pretty bad. And it is pretty bad.DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not be your friend, since sometimes the camera swirls. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

This is a marvelous piece of theater (yes: theater) put on a roll of film and released as a movie. The images are not that important, the real importance lies in the WORDS: the way the words are connected one to the other in the text, with silences, spaces, italics and all, and the way they are PRONOUNCED. This is a work for voices, conceived by Dylan Thomas (I think) for the radio, not for the TV (1954). As a matter of fact the subtitle says: "A Play for Voices". And here you have almost the best as far as voices are concerned: Burton, O'Toole, the others. You could as well shut your eyes and simply listen. I did it, and found myself dreamily trying to follow the rhythm of the voices

Dylan Thomas's poetic flow is all that counts with 'Under Milk Wood.' Perhaps it could have been made poetic visually as well, but this effort doesn't prove it. In fact, the direction is pedestrian, and some odd liberties with the text (the scene in the barn with Burton & Davies getting it on with a woman, for instance) only makes things worse since it is the text that matters.Then there is Richard Burton. No doubt that he would be THE actor for this film being a fellow Welshman like Thomas and a champion of the writer's work, but he is actually a bizarre presence in this film. He and Ryan Davies play a pair of wanderers drifting through town, their characters having little interaction with the folks, but Burton's character somehow has an omniscient knowledge of all of them. Burton doesn't speak on camera: his vocal performance is all voice-over narration. Ryan Davies never speaks a word on camera or off, as if he wandered in from a silent movie. Sadly, Burton strolls through the entire film with a goofy grin on his face, looking pale and drunk. And his wife Liz Taylor, handed a cameo, maintains her hideous late 60's makeup and renders herself unwatchable. But to be fair there are a lot of pretty women in this film and they are continuously slobbered over by a series of ugly Welshmen. The other featured star is Peter O'Toole as the blind Captain Cat. I admire this actor but he carries himself strangely in this film: he moves like a marionette straight out of the 'Thunderbirds.' Lastly, a weak music score doesn't help, especially with the lovely lyrics. Stick with the radio version.

The movie is a painting of scenes, and a romance with English words that, oddly enough, only Celtic people seem capable of; Welshman Burton's riveting voice gives life to his countryman's work like perhaps none living could, today . The language is so lively and the metaphors so concentrated that the film may leave some scratching their heads; but for lovers of poetry, or literature at large, this well-conceived and directed interpretation of Dylan is worth the viewing. Peter O'Toole and Elizabeth Taylor give interesting performances, and the film contains several scenes that will stay with the viewer long after the film is over. The lush countryside of seaside Wales, and the sleepy little village in which the action plays out, are also quite haunting. Llareggub, indeed.