No Resting Place

The brilliant British documentary filmmaker Paul Rotha made his feature-film debut with 1950's No Resting Place. Filmed on location in Ireland, the film is a lightly fictionalized study of that country's itinerant workmen. Michael Gough plays tinker Alec Kyle, whose life is thrown into turmoil when he accidentally kills a man. Kyle spends the rest of the film evading Guard Mannigan (Noel Purcell), a civil servant who relies on instinct rather than scientific deduction to get his man. Without ever trying to elicit sympathy for his characters, director Rotha manages to compellingly detail the miserable living and working conditions of Ireland's nomad artisans.

Cast

Michael Gough Alec Kyle Eithne Dunne Meg Kyle Noel Purcell Guard Mannigan Brian O'Higgins Tom Kyle Jack MacGowran Billy Kyle

Diana Campbell Bess Kyle

Maureen O'Sullivan Nan Kyle May Craig Fred Johnson

Robert Hennessy

Esther O'Connor Tom's Daughter (uncredited)

Christy Lawrence Paddy (uncredited)

Metadata from the source database.