The Last Days of Dolwyn

Hey, it's a young Richard Burton! His movie debut, and a boy of the man he would become. Was almost hard to digest that this was THE Richard Burton because of how young and unpolished he was as actor. Great to see him like this. Anyway, the heart of The Last Days of Dolwyn (1949) was old Edith Evans as her home is about to get put under water by the water company and it's sneaky operators. A little slow and unfocused, almost. But the ending was tragic and brilliant.

Meandering tale almost-fatally guts the inherent drama in the story (one could almost view it as a small-scale end-of-the-world scenario) by presenting all characters as almost uniformly dull and stereotypical 'stiff upper lip' characters -- only a very green Burton and Evans (both marvellous) really convince as people whose day-to-day lives (and livelihoods) are about to come to an abrupt end; this makes the climax an ineveitable let-down (and the dutiful trudge-off almost absurdly funny).