''Beyond the Pale'' is a 1999 immigrant drama set in mid-1980s New York, directed by George Bazala and starring

Patrick Clarke Patrick Clarke is an Irish writer, director, producer and actor. Clarke co-wrote and produced his first feature '' Beyond the Pale'' in 1999. Based on actual events, the immigrant drama was a commercial success in Ireland, Australia and the U ...

Malachy McCourt Malachy Gerard McCourt (born 20 September 1931) is an American-Irish actor, writer, one-time pub owner, and politician. He was the 2006 Green Party of New York candidate for governor in New York State, losing to the Democratic candidate Eliot S ...

and Roger Davis.

Plot

Two Irish men, Patrick Shaw (

) and Seamus O'Sullivan (Conn Horgan), enter the U.S. illegally. Landing in New York the pair start out with dreams of making it big but soon find themselves in dead-end jobs and drifting apart. As Seamus pursues various get rich quick schemes, the more cautious Patrick holds down a janitors job and plays good Samaritan to washed up alcoholic author Tom Finnegan (

). Along the way Patrick falls for Helen (Beverley Elder), a struggling actress entangled in a messy break up with Jeffrey ( Roger Davis). Everything comes to a head when Seamus turns to backroom gambling, Tom hits rock bottom and Jeffrey makes a vicious play to win Helen back.

Development

''Beyond the Pale'' began its life at a table in the Film Centre Cafe in

Hells Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the e ...

NYC in June 1996 when George Bazala and

thrashed out an idea based on the life of an Irish immigrant in late 1980s New York City. The pair had just finished working together on 'Fall from Grace' a Hunter College grad thesis short film. Work on the script was completed in August 1996, NYU film grad Jack Alvino signed on as co-producer and Maiden Voyage Pictures was formed to seek finance for filming. Preparations got underway to shoot the film's opening segment in Clarke's hometown of Dublin, Ireland. This would prove to be an extremely ambitious undertaking considering they had only raised US$20,000. Clarke flew to Dublin on December 2, 1996, to make preparations for the arrival of the crew and to scout and secure locations and equipment. A week later, Bazala flew in to audition actors. By the time Alvino and the rest of the crew arrived, everything was miraculously in place. The tight five-day shooting schedule with a skeleton crew proved extremely tough. Clarke's friends and relatives were drafted in to help with everything from catering to horse wrangling. On 19 December, the opening eleven minutes of ''Beyond the Pale'' was in the can. Bazala recalled, “We were all very anxious to see the results of our adventure in Dublin. Unfortunately, we would have to wait until February 1997, when we had raised the funds to process, sync and transfer the film. It was mid-March before editor Michael Sullivan had completed a

rough cut In filmmaking, the rough cut is the second of three stages of offline editing. The term originates from the early days of filmmaking when film stock was physically cut and reassembled, but is still used to describe projects that are recorded and e ...

. We couldn’t have been happier with the outcome”. Beyond the Pale had its world premiere at the

Galway Film Fleadh The Galway Film Fleadh (; Irish for "festival") is an international film festival founded in 1989 as part of the Galway Arts Festival. Describing itself as Ireland’s leading film festival, the event is held every July in Galway city in Ireland ...

on 5 July 1999 and its US premiere at the 33rd Houston International Film Festival (9 April 2000) where it won for best dramatic feature film.

Cast

as Patrick Shaw *

as Tom Finegan *Conn Horgan as Seamus O'Sullivan *Beverley Elder as Helen * Roger Davis as Jeffrey *Ruth Miller as Miss Mooney *Valentina Olmos as Conchita *Brian Mallon as The Cop *Iris Braydon as Lily *Worth Howe as Mr Arnold *William Stone Mahoney as Gambler *Neale Harper as Bob *Catherine Natale as Margie *Jason Killalee as Sean *Tom Finegan as Man on Street (Cameo) *

Eric Mabius Eric Harry Timothy Mabius (born April 22, 1971) is an American actor. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, with a degree in cinema studies. After working in theater productions, Ma ...

as Brian (Cameo)

Awards

''Beyond the Pale'' won for best drama at the 2000 Houston Film Festival.

Filming locations

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Manhattan, New York Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

Queens, New York Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long I ...

Staten Island, New York Staten Island ( ) is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey b ...

References

External links

*
''Beyond the Pale'' trailer
*{{Vimeo, id=ondemand/beyondthepale, title=Beyond the Pale 2000 films American biographical films Irish biographical films English-language Irish films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films