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This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

If it can happen to Richard Burton, it can happen to anyone. It was early on in his career, so thankfully, everyone was able to forget about this one after he made My Cousin Rachel the following year. Green Grow the Rushes is a very silly movie, one that you wouldn't expect a Shakespearean actor to make.A group of men try to smuggle brandy in through old smuggling ships, but a young female reporter tries to get in their way by sort of pretending she doesn't know what they're up to, but then admitting she knows and is going to write a newspaper article about it, but then forgets her plan altogether because Richard Burton flirts with her. It's a little confusing, but then again, you won't really care about the plot enough to really try to figure it out. It's very silly, and I wouldn't really recommend it.

This film was the first venture of ACT Films,a company set up by the technicians union to provide more employment for its members.they were aided with government money through the NFFC.They did have problems getting this and their other films distributed with the result that the venture was a short lived affair.If the other films were of a similar quality to this then it is little surprise.It is a clear copy of Whiskey galore and Passport To Pimlico only without the originality and humour of the original.Instead of humour slapstick takes its place often with woeful results.the climax is just plain awful.What makes it worse is that the cast is good.Roger Livesey on his way down to character parts and a very young Honor Blackman and Richard Burton.Shame this talent is wasted on this dismal farce.

I believe it was G. K. Chesterton who described himself as a "Little Englander." To those of us born after WWII, it is hard to fully grasp what he had in mind; which is the reason why I like Green Grow the Rushes, because I think it gives some idea of what Chesterton meant. It is ostensibly about a boat that became stranded with a load of brandy. But the subtext involves the conflict between officials of the British national government and the locals and their local officials who attempt to thwart the government by invoking laws and immunities dating back to feudal times. In this sense it is a libertarian classic which reminds us that so-called feudal Europe was in fact a complex tapestry of autonomous localities, fiefdoms, principalities, etc., under a relatively weak (by today's standards) central state. The movie manages to convey a sense of nostalgia for a type of little England with its absurdly dressed officials and independent-minded locals who stand in contrast to and are suspicious of the suited technocrats who descend upon them to change their customs and plan their lives.

Is there any documentation on the story of this movie. In other words, how does this derive from the 18th-century English folk song "Green Grow the Rushes" (?) Those words are sung in the second line of each verse. The first verse is, I'll sing you one O. Green grow the rushes O. and so on until the song reaches I'll sing you twelve O... it's a counting song, similar to "The Twelve Days of Christmas." In Kent, the movie's setting, some of the locals are "Lily White," though no reason is given by the movie as to how anyone earns that designation. In the song, each verse (after the first) has the line, "Two, two, the lily-white boys, clothed all in green O." But the original meaning of that is now a matter of speculation.