The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995)

Calificación de los usuarios:

6.4/10   

Director:

Christopher Monger

Escritores:

Ivor Monger (story)
Christopher Monger (writer)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

12 mayo 1995 (USA)

Género:

Comedia | Romance

Frase comercial:

A romantic comedy about a town that wouldn't give up. A man who couldn't get out. And the mountain that brought them together.

Plot:

When an English cartographer must tell a Welsh village that their mountain is only a hill, the offended community sets out to change that.

Plot Keywords:

Mountain | Hill | Wales | Welsh | WWI

Premios:

1 win & 1 nomination

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Building a Mountain From a Molehill?

Reparto

Hugh Grant	...	Reginald Anson
Tara Fitzgerald	...	Elizabeth aka Betty from Cardiff
Colm Meaney	...	Morgan the Goat
Ian McNeice	...	George Garrad
Ian Hart	...	Johnny Shellshocked (Jones)
Kenneth Griffith	...	Reverend Jones
Tudor Vaughan	...	Thomas Twp
Hugh Vaughan	...	Thomas Twp Too
Robert Pugh	...	Williams the Petroleum
Robert Blythe	...	Ivor
Garfield Morgan	...	Davies the School
Lisa Palfrey	...	Blod Jones
Dafydd Wyn Roberts	...	Tommy Twostroke
Ieuan Rhys	...	Sgt. Thomas
Anwen Williams	...	Mavis

También conocida como:

El inglés que subió una colina, pero bajó una montaña (Spain) [es]

MPAA:

Rated PG for mild language.

Duración:

99 min

País:

UK

Idioma:

Inglés

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Relación de Aspecto:

2.35 : 1

Sonido:

Dolby

Clasificación:

USA:PG (certificate #33696) | Iceland:L | Finland:S | Germany:12 (w) | Norway:11 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | Spain:T | Sweden:7 | UK:PG

Locaciones de Filmación:

Gyrn Moelfre, Powys, Wales, UK

Compañía:

Miramax Films

Trivialidades:

Almost at the end of the film is an aerial shot, the camera speeding toward six descendants of the villagers standing on Ffynnon Garw, which is just like a shot at the end of Sirens (1993). Both films starred Hugh Grant and Tara Fitzgerald, and Robert Jones was an executive producer on both.

Errores:

Errores en Geografía: The Bristol Channel should be visible from the hill. Also missing is the Taff River and Castell Coch.

Citas:

[first lines]
Narrator: For some odd reason, lost in the mists of time, there's an extraordinary shortage of last names in Wales. Almost everyone seems to be a Williams, a Jones, or an Evans. To avoid widespread confusion, Welsh people often add an occupation to a name. For example, there was Williams the Petroleum, and Williams the Death. There was Jones the Bottle, and Jones the Prize Cabbage...
[...]

Conexiones de Película:

Referenced in "The Fast Show: Oh (#2.1)" (1996)

Banda de Sonido:

Men of Harlech

Building a Mountain From a Molehill?

This film is like THE LADY VANISHES and SO LONG AT THE FAIR - it is a film based on a story that has some plausibility and has been told many times, but may be legendary.

In 1917 two Englishman come to a Welch village. They are doing surveying work for the government to look over the mountains of Wales The village is proud of the mountain just behind it, which for ages has been called the first great mountain of Wales. The two men measure the mountain and find it is 984 feet tall. Unfortunately, it has been determined that mountains must be 1,000 feet tall at least. So this mountain is not a mountain but a hill!

Angry, the villagers determine to try to undue this "mistake". First they have to keep the Englishmen in the village long enough for a second measurement of the mountain to be made. Second, they have to organize all the members of the village into working together to add some twenty feet to the hill and make it a mountain again.

What follows is a comedy of clashing nationalities (Welsh v. English), particularly the obnoxious senior member of the surveying team, George (Ian MacNeice) who constantly belittles the locals, and who even says how much he hates them (then why did he take this job one wonders). The nicer, more amenable younger member of the team, Anson (Hugh Grant), is willing to observe what the community wants to accomplish (especially after he meets a local girl, Betty (Tara Fitzgerald)). Led by the local publican Morgan the Goat (Colm Meaney - from the various STAR TREK series), the locals try to keep George occupied by disabling his car, and lying about the local train service, and giving him as much gin as he likes. Anson proves far less hostile, and actually ends helping them.

The Welsh are also split. Morgan is a wizard at organization, but nobody trusts him. Least of all the local spiritual leader, Rev. Jones (Kenneth Griffiths). When the townspeople are building the mountain up the first time, Jones notes that Morgan is making a mint out of selling beer to the parched men involved. Jones also has problems with the local schoolteacher, the Anglophile Mr. Davies (Garfield Morgan), who does not think his little charges should have a day off - in order to help build up a mountain.

The weather turns hostile with heavy rains. Time is running out. Will the locals turn the hill into a mountain or will they have to accept the hill is only a hill?

Well made, and funny (and sad at one or two points, when the effects of the war and the death of a leading character appear in the screenplay), the movie is well worth watching, and a definite "10" out of "10".