''Mr. Forbush and the Penguins'' (also known as ''Cry of the Penguins'') is a 1971

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

comedy drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple co ...

film, directed by

Arne Sucksdorff Arne Edvard Sucksdorff (3 February 1917 – 4 May 2001) was a Swedish film director, considered one of cinema's greatest documentary filmmakers. He was particularly celebrated for his visually poetic and scenic nature documentaries. His works ...

, Alfred Viola and

Roy Boulting John Edward Boulting (21 December 1913 – 17 June 1985) and Roy Alfred Clarence Boulting (21 December 1913 – 5 November 2001), known collectively as the Boulting brothers, were English filmmakers and identical twins who became known for thei ...

. It stars

John Hurt Sir John Vincent Hurt (22 January 1940 – 25 January 2017) was an English actor whose career spanned over five decades. Hurt was regarded as one of Britain's finest actors. Director David Lynch described him as "simply the greatest actor in t ...

Hayley Mills Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills (born 18 April 1946) is an English actress. The daughter of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and younger sister of actress Juliet Mills, she began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising ...

Dudley Sutton Dudley Sutton (6 April 1933 – 15 September 2018) was an English actor. Active in radio, stage, film and television, he was arguably best known for his role of Tinker Dill in the BBC Television drama series ''Lovejoy''. Early life Sutton was ...

and

Tony Britton Anthony Edward Lowry Britton (9 June 1924 – 22 December 2019) was an English actor. He appeared in a variety of films (including ''The Day of the Jackal'') and television sitcoms (including '' Don't Wait Up'' and '' Robin's Nest'' He is the f ...

Plot

A brilliant biology student, Richard Forbush (John Hurt), is sent to Antarctica for six months to study a penguin colony. At first he does it mostly to impress a girl he is chasing, Tara (Hayley Mills). He stays in Shackleton's Hut with his only links to the outside world being a two-way radio to contact the navy who occasionally visit to deliver supplies and take his letters and tape recordings to Tara. He is challenged mentally by

skua The skuas are a group of predatory seabirds with seven species forming the genus ''Stercorarius'', the only genus in the family Stercorariidae. The three smaller skuas, the long-tailed skua, the Arctic skua, and the pomarine skua are called jae ...

s preying on the penguins' eggs and chicks and he builds a catapult to try to fight them although he is meant to observe and not interfere with nature. He is reminded of this by his failure to get rid of the skuas. By the end of his expedition, Forbush is a changed man with a totally new outlook on life.

Cast

as Richard Forbush *

as Tara St. John Luke *

as Starshot *

as George Dewport *

Thorley Walters Thorley Swinstead Walters (12 May 1913 – 6 July 1991) was an English character actor. He is probably best remembered for his comedy film roles such as in ''Two-Way Stretch'' and '' Carlton-Browne of the FO''. Early life Walters was born in Tei ...

as Mr. Forbush Sr. *

Judy Campbell Judy Campbell (born Judith Mary Gamble; 31 May 1916 – 6 June 2004) was an English film, television and stage actress, widely known to be Noël Coward's muse. Her daughter is the actress and singer Jane Birkin, her son the screenwriter and dir ...

as Mrs. Forbush *

Joss Ackland Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland CBE (born 29 February 1928) is an English retired actor who has appeared in more than 130 film and television roles. He was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for portraying Jock Del ...

as The Leader *

Nicholas Pennell Nicholas Pennell (19 November 1938 – 22 February 1995) was an English actor who appeared frequently on film and television in the 1960s. He emigrated to Stratford, Ontario, Canada, where he became a stalwart of the Stratford Festival. Pennel ...

as Julien *

Avril Angers Florence Avril Angers (18 April 1918 – 9 November 2005) was an English stand-up comedian and actress. The ''Daily Telegraph'' described her as "one of the most zestful, charming and reliable character comediennes in the postwar London theat ...

as Fanny *

Cyril Luckham Cyril Alexander Garland Luckham (25 July 1907 – 8 February 1989) was an English film, television and theatre actor. He was the husband of stage and screen actress Violet Lamb. Career The son of a paymaster captain in the Royal Navy, Cyril Lu ...

as Tringham *

Sally Geeson Sally Louise Geeson (born 23 June 1950) is an English actress with a career mostly on television in the 1970s. She is best known for playing Sid James's daughter, Sally, in '' Bless This House'' and for her roles in ''Carry On Abroad'' (1972) a ...

as Jackie *

Brian Oulton Brian Oulton (11 February 1908 – 13 April 1992) was an English character actor. Biography Born in Liverpool, Lancashire, Oulton made his acting debut in 1939 as a lead actor. During the Second World War he served in the British Army, and ret ...

as Food-Store Clerk *

John Comer John Comer (1 March 1924 – 11 February 1984) was a British comic actor. He was best known for his roles in ''Coronation Street'' as Mr Birtles, then as a taxi driver, and later as Wilf Jones, in ''Emmerdale Farm'' as Ernie Shuttleworth, Les ...

as Police Sergeant *

Hugh Moxey Hugh Vincent Moxey (27 September 1909, Somerset, – 9 March 1991, Wandsworth), was a British film and television actor. Moxey spanned his career for 40 years, where he was best remembered in supporting roles in 1950s British war films, incl ...

as Lord Cheddar

Production

Development

The film was based on a 1965 novel by

Graham Billing Graham John Billing (12 January 1936 – 11 December 2001) was a New Zealand novelist, journalist and poet. He was born in Dunedin, and educated at the Otago Boys' High School and the University of Otago where his father was professor of economic ...

, who had worked for the New Zealand Antarctic Division. The film was a co-production between

EMI Films EMI Films was a British film studio and distributor. A subsidiary of the EMI conglomerate, the corporate name was not used throughout the entire period of EMI's involvement in the film industry, from 1969 to 1986, but the company's brief conne ...

, PGL Productions and

British Lion Films British Lion Films is a film production and distribution company active under several forms since 1919. Originally known as British Lion Film Corporation Ltd, it entered receivership on 1 June 1954. From 29 January 1955 to 1976, the company was kn ...

. It was part of the initial slate of movies greenlit by

Bryan Forbes Bryan Forbes CBE (; born John Theobald Clarke; 22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist described as a "Renaissance man"Falk Q. . BAFTA. 17 October 2007. Retrieved 9 May 2013 an ...

who had been appointed head of EMI. Director Al Viola had won awards for his commercials and this would be his feature film debut. The novel was adapted by playwright

Anthony Schaffer Anthony Joshua Shaffer (15 May 19266 November 2001) was an English playwright, screenwriter, novelist, barrister, and advertising executive. Early life Shaffer was born to a Jewish family in Liverpool, the son of Reka (née Fredman) and Jack S ...

, doing his first script. Swedish filmmaker

was hired to shoot footage in Antarctica.

Shooting

Filming started 4 November 1969 at

Palmer Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...

in Antarctica. Making the film was a turbulent experience. Penguin footage shot by

on location in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

did not cut smoothly into scenes involving humans.

of British Lion replaced director Al Viola, and he replaced

Susan Fleetwood Susan Maureen Fleetwood (21 September 1944 – 29 September 1995) was a British stage, film, and television actress, who specialized in classical theatre. She received popular attention in the television series ''Chandler & Co'' and '' The Buddh ...

, the original female lead, with his then-wife,

was angry at this and

of EMI had to spend an entire evening persuading him not to quit. Schaffer, the screenwriter, recalled it as "a fairly chaotic movie which had the young John Hurt capering about the Atlantic slinging rocks at Skuas with a Roman balista, in a vain attempt to protect penguins' eggs from their deprivations. I'm not sure that it all added up, though my younger daughter assures me... it's her favourite film of mine." He added that the female lead "was replaced after the first rough assembly and it was the only film I know of in which a stage direction was delivered as spoken dialogue. It didn't matter. No one noticed - which should generally tell you something about the respect accorded the screen writer's craft."THE WICKER MAN AND OTHERS Shaffer, Anthony. Sight and Sound; London Vol. 5, Iss. 8, (Aug 1, 1995): 28.

Reception

''The Guardian'' said the film "isn't as bad as we'd been led to believe." The film failed to recoup its considerable cost.Walker, Alexander, ''Hollywood England'', Harrap and Stein, 1974 p433-434

References

External links

''Mr. Forbush and the Penguins''
at the

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

''Mr Forbush and the Penguins''
at BFI

at

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Review of film
at Film Fanatic
Review of novel
at Kirkus {{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Forbush and the Penguins 1971 films 1970s adventure films British adventure films 1970s English-language films Films about penguins Environmental films Films directed by Roy Boulting Films directed by Arne Sucksdorff Films scored by John Addison Films shot at EMI-Elstree Studios Films with screenplays by Anthony Shaffer Films shot in Antarctica EMI Films films 1970s British films