StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Madilyn Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Juan-30 With the exception of the beautiful naked scenes of Susannah York and for those with weird artistic nudity taste, O'Toole cadaverous body, there is not emotions in the theatrical and convoluted dialog of this movie. O'Toole give us brilliant examples of his acting genius in many of his work, but he leaves an emptiness and a disillusion extraordinary in this incomprehensible and scanty movie. I would say that this portrayal of incestuously relationship English style, was made with the intention of just satisfying a contractual requirement and counting, for its development , only with the effulgence of the people involved in it. If there are no other reasons, is simply a incoherent failure of business endeavor . The theme is very interesting but in this version there is only one definition emerging to the mind: boring!

victorsargeant After all these years, of Peter O'Tool's brilliant, costly giving of his Soul, film after film, at last, Hollywood tosses him an Oscar recently.Country Dance showed up one night late, and of course, blew me out of my complainant niche in my alleged "Life". How does he do it?York again also is brilliant in this kind of play. Both psychological battleships loaded for bear....Bravo to author, director, cast, and camera crew. No wonder the Nazi's lost to these Irish, Scot, English blends....brutal honesty hurts...back in the 70's, when I personally believed "honesty" was pure and absolutely vital to trust. I have modified my edgy extremes, and will settle for more human, warm flaws within myself and others.Forgiveness allows humanity to have a reverse gear, and allows us to fix our own bull headed egos and erotic mistakes....

James Hitchcock Contains spoilers. The British director J. Lee Thompson made some excellent films, notably 'Ice Cold in Alex' and 'Cape Fear', but 'Country Dance' is one of his more curious offerings. The story is set among the upper classes of rural Scotland, and details the strange triangular relationship between Sir Charles Ferguson, an eccentric aristocratic landowner, his sister Hilary, and Hilary's estranged husband Douglas, who is hoping for a reconciliation with her. We learn that during his career as an Army officer, Charles was regarded as having 'low moral fibre'. This appears to have been an accurate diagnosis of his condition; throughout the film he displays an attitude of gloomy disillusionment with the world, and his main sources of emotional support seem to be Hilary and his whisky bottle. The film ends with his committal to an upper-class lunatic asylum. Peter O'Toole was, when he was at his best as in 'Lawrence of Arabia', one of Britain's leading actors, but the quality of his work was very uneven, and 'Country Dance' is not one of his better films. He overacts frantically, making Charles into a caricature of the useless inbred aristocrat, as though he were auditioning for a part in the Monty Python 'Upper-Class Twit of the Year' sketch. Susannah York as Hilary and Michael Craig as Douglas are rather better, but there is no really outstanding acting performance in the film. There is also little in the way of coherent plot, beyond the tale of Charles's inexorable downward slide.The main problem with the film, however, is neither the acting nor the plot, but rather that of the Theme That Dare Not Speak Its Name. There are half-hearted hints of an incestuous relationship between Charles and Hilary, or at least of an incestuous attraction towards her on his part, and that his dislike of Douglas is motivated by sexual jealousy. Unfortunately, even in the swinging sixties and early seventies (the date of the film is variously given as either 1969 or 1970) there was a limit to what the British Board of Film Censors was willing to allow, and a film with an explicitly incestuous theme was definitely off-limits. (The American title for the film was 'Brotherly Love', but this was not used in Britain; was it too suggestive for the liking of the BBFC?) These hints are therefore never developed and we never get to see what motivates Charles or what has caused his moral collapse, resulting in a hollow film with a hole at its centre. 4/10

xokatyxo The undoubted highlight of this movie is Peter O'Toole's performance. In turn wildly comical and terribly terribly tragic. Does anybody do it better than O'Toole? I don't think so. What a great face that man has!The story is an odd one and quite disturbing and emotionally intense in parts (especially toward the end) but it is also oddly touching and does succeed on many levels. However, I felt the film basically revolved around Peter O'Toole's luminous performance and I'm sure I wouldn't have enjoyed it even half as much if he hadn't been in it.