Shake Hands with the Devil

Shake Hands with the Devil (1959)

A story of love and hate...and the sudden sound of guns!

In 1921 Dublin, the IRA battles the "Black & Tans," special British forces given to harsh measures. Irish-American medical student Kerry O'Shea hopes to stay aloof, but saving a wounded friend gets him outlawed, and inexorably drawn into the rebel organization by his former professor Sean Lenihan, who has "shaken hands with the devil" and begun to think of fighting as an end in itself. Complications arise when Kerry falls for a beautiful English hostage, and the British offer a peace treaty that is not enough to satisfy Lenihan.

Date of release
1959-06-24
TMDB
6.5 / 10 (28)
Runtime
1h 51m
Genres
Action, Drama, War, History
Director
Michael Anderson

Casting

Interesting facts

Shake Hands with the Devil is a 1959 war drama-thriller film produced and directed by Michael Anderson and starring James Cagney, Don Murray, Dana Wynter, and Glynis Johns, and features supporting roles by Michael Redgrave, Sybil Thorndike, Cyril Cusack, and Richard Harris. The film follows a group of Irish Republican Army (IRA) fighters in Dublin during the War of Independence. The screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts is based on the 1933 novel by Rearden Conner, the son of a Royal Irish Constabulary policeman.

Production

James Cagney described the opportunity to work on the film as "a plum part and a trip to Ireland – unbeatable."

The actor was approached for the role of Sean Lenihan by screenwriters Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, with whom he had previously collaborated on White Heat, Come Fill the Cup, and Man of a Thousand Faces. According to Roberts, the writers believed American audiences might struggle to understand the character, whom they viewed as an uncompromising revolutionary.

The film was produced by Pennebaker Productions, the company founded by Marlon Brando. When questioned by journalists about his connection to Brando, Cagney replied, "Never even seen one of his films. Don't know what Method acting is."

Reflecting on Cagney’s performance, co-star Don Murray later commented that Cagney was "a strikingly good actor but also what one would call a personality actor. He was always Cagney, and truly wonderful, but he was playing his own personality."

The film was filmed in Dublin, Ballymore Eustace, Ballyknockan and at Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland.

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