A Masterpiece!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

When I read Paul Gallico's short story in 1966 in a Reader's Digest book publication, I concluded that I was facing one of the most beautiful stories I had ever read. I was 17 years old and now 68 years old, I'm just as sure. I've read hundreds of books, watched hundreds of other movies, but The Snow Goose remains not only the most beautiful story I've ever read, but also one of the most thrilling movies I've seen. It's a difficult story to shoot, as it revolves around a bird almost impossible to control, but the footage is perfect, preserving everything Paul Gallico has dreamed up. Some small parts of the film are different from the book, but we have to admit that for the transposition of a book into the cinema or TV, some adjustments are necessary. It only lacked in the end the destruction of the lighthouse by a German bomber. But it's a wonderful movie. Richard Harris and Jenny Agutter are perfect in their roles of Phillip Rhayader and Frith. For some reason I still can not identify, this story and this film touches me deeply. It is very difficult to contain the tears in the moments of affection between the goose, Rhayader and Frith, and when the goose departs to the North or when it returns. The greater emotion is due to the decision of the goose to accompany Rhayader in the small boat, facing the danger of the battles in the rescue of the wounded soldiers. It is something unprecedented and of unprecedented grandeur, and even at this very moment when I write this commentary, tears flow from my eyes. It's a wonderful story and the film retains the same atmosphere as the book. They are perfect: book and film. I only regret the lack of the film in the commercial market, I have already searched extensively for a DVD and never found it. I watch the movie often on YouTube, it's the only solution. But it is gratifying to watch it, it is good for the soul

I remember reading this book in the second year (about 12 years old- 1976) at Secondary School and it was in a short story form.It was given to us a "Character study book" to be read class, each person reading a page. Its character analysis in the story line, of two joined by a common interest, is truly beautiful and touching, even for a 12 year old. If I remember rightly, in the book, Fritha becomes a recluse too taking on where Ryhadda left off. I am pleased to see that it is still available in its original format. I didn't realise until "wandering around" U-Tube that it had been turned in to a short serial, (I assume for TV) and apparently there is a longer film version.Don't miss it in the book-shop or Library, as it is in small copy; it may even be in the children's' section. A lovely read, even for grown ups. Search U-Tube yourselves to find the film and serialised versions.

This justly famous short story is surprisingly simple in its construction and densely emotional in its impact. There are familiar plot elements: ugly old man meets beautiful young girl, they develop a close relationship. In some ways one is moved to think of Silas Marner, there are both rich and rigid qualities in their love, never consummated, sharply constrained. The eroticism of Rhayader's relationship with the girl, Fritha, is almost totally suppressed but it is bursting out of the story repeatedly before the final scenes. It's like the sensual heat of Girl With A Pearl Earring, deeply heartfelt and almost completely unexpressed. Vermeer painted the girl from life; Rhayader painted his girl from memory, a symbolic reflection of his restrained character and the repressed relationship. The story line of Snow Goose is mostly mundane, Gallico easily sustains a dramatic tension, although the Dunkirk evacuation scenes are almost disembodied, almost a charade with the forced Cockney accents dominating the dialog. Snow Goose is eminently poetic, the ending that every reader can anticipate occurs with realistic sadness and realistic revelation. Fritha feels the words in her heart: "Philip, I love 'ee." The long-patient viewer is finally released to wordless exultation. Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick

The Snow GooseOften the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of mushy greeting cards, Hallmark is a veteran producer of classic films. For instance, look for a release this year of Homer Hickam's (author of October Sky/Rocket Boys) Sky of Stone.I was not even born when this film version of Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose first appeared on the BBC in 1971, and it is only through my Uncle's affiliation with the Post Office that I was able to secure a copy of this film much later (British television comes under the supervision of the General Post Office). This is an award-winning made-for-TV movie that affected me like no other, a black and white film set in the dismal east-coast marshes of Essex in the late 1930s.There are only two characters, really: a misshapen, scraggly, dark-haired man who had taken up residence in an abandoned lighthouse from whence even the sea had retreated, and a smudgy-faced waif from the nearby Saxon oyster-fishing hamlet of Wickaeldroth.In what I consider to be his best film role ever--though I am sure a younger generation will forever remember him as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films--a very young Richard Harris takes on the personality of Gallico's dark hero Philip Rhayader, assisted by a young Jenny Agutter as Frith.We learn that Mr. Rhayader, a painter, has come to this desolate lighthouse to escape pity and the uncomfortable reactions that his physical deformities seem to engender. At 27 years of age, he buys the lighthouse and the land around it to be his haven from commerce with others, and creates a small artist's studio and a sanctuary for wounded fowl.One day, he detects a small form approaching on the sea wall. His visitor is a young girl from the nearby village, and as she draws near, he sees that she carries a bird which has been shot by the fowlers in a nearby marsh.I said earlier that there are only two characters of any import in this story, but there is indeed a third if we count the wayward Canadian snow goose who has miraculously survived a terrible storm. Blown nearly three thousand miles off her migratory course, upon her weary approach to the marshes, she is greeted by a shot from a hunter's gun. Rhayader tells the apprehensive girl, Frith, that this bird comes all the way from Canada, so he calls the snow goose La Princesse Perdue, the lost princess. Frith begins to visit the recovering bird regularly, but once it has healed and flies off in response to its migratory instinct, her visits cease. It is then with even greater loneliness and sadness that Rhayader awaits the fall, which signals the return of the snow goose and his curious female visitor. Meanwhile, he recedes again into his sequestered life, only seeing the world twice a month when he deftly sails his boat to the village of Chelmbury for supplies.Seasons pass and Frith grows to be a young woman, La Princesse Perdue returns every fall, and war continues to scar the face of Europe. One day, the government calls upon every able-bodied man on the east coast of England who owns a tug, a fishing boat or a power-launch, to sail to Dunkirk and save an army of British soldiers who are trapped on the beach, awaiting destruction at the hands of the advancing German army. When Frith comes to visit, she finds Rhayader in his boat, ready to sail across the channel to do what he can to help, a gleam in his eye at the challenge that awaits him. It is at this point that Frith becomes aware of the feelings that have grown in her heart for this man, and she offers to go with him. To say more would indeed spoil this film, or should I say the story. Unfortunately, even though Paul Gallico wrote the screenplay for this classic, he stipulated in his will that the movie should never again be screened, so sure was he that the message he wished to convey was to be found in the 53 pages of his novelette of the same name. Few films created in the century since the dawn of the moving-picture medium deserve a perfect ten. This is one of them.Reviewer's Note: This film is based upon the actual event known as `Operation Dynamo'. June 2, 2004, marks the 64rd anniversary of the evacuation at Dunkirk, wherein 338,000 stranded men were shuttled to safety by a flotilla of rag-tag vessels that would have been an embarrassment to McHale's Navy.