Juno And The Paycock

I finished the Alfred Hitchcock film, "Juno and the Paycock."

It's part of a 4-disc DVD set I got at Walmart for $5.00. It's been nearly two months since I bought this set and I've been watching them ever since. It has 20 movies. I'm on the last disc. "Juno" is the first movie on the fourth disc.

It's really been a fun education for me, I guess I'd call it, in the early films of Hitchcock. I would definitely like to see them all at this point, and maybe go through them again or a few more times.

This one I wasn't too sure about. I started watching it without having any idea what was going on or what it was about. So it seemed like nothing but a slice of life for a family of Irish folks. Then I read a little about it and even read the plot and accidentally read about the ending, so I knew what was coming up. It actually made it a lot more enjoyable to watch.

It is based on a play by Sean O'Casey, and according to those who know, it's a very faithful adaptation. It really does seem like a play, more or less, filmed. There's a few variances from that.

Anyway, I had no idea what a "paycock" was so I was a little put off by that. Turns out it's just a way of pronouncing "peacock." And Juno and the Paycock has an Aesop's Fables connection, which I also read about online.

There's a family of Irish folk, the Boyle family, with the woman, Juno, the man (can't think of his name, but he's the peacock in all this), their daughter Mary, and their one-armed, very moody son, Johnny. Johnny seems to be in with the wrong crowd and is doing something that gets him in trouble. I'm not sure what. I need to watch it again.

Mary ends up pregnant in the movie and that's a shame for her. Johnny ends up dead. Juno and the Paycock end up broke and fairly in despair. So that's the ending, sorry to ruin it for you.

As to the dialogue, you can make out most of it if you really try, but it's tough, with a very pronounced Irish accent. I love the acting and the characterizations. The husband is very irascible. He has a drinking buddy who's fun to watch too.

The family thinks they inherit a bunch of money, proceed to spend on credit, oblivious to the possibility that something could go wrong. This is exactly what I would not do. I need to know the money's there. So that was kind of dumb on their part, but that's the movie.

As it went on I became a lot more interested. Knowing what was going on really helped.