Green Grow the Rushes

The British film industry was in deep trouble in the late 1940s, sufficient to justify the craft unions themselves working to secure some production for their members. One result was GREEN GROW THE RUSHES (1951), a comedy directed by Derek Twist and starring Richard Burton, Roger Livesey, and Honor Blackman. The plot is a piercing look at postwar Britain, and efforts to move the nation into the modern age, which don’t sit well with the people of Anderia Marsh, who have claimed a right (going back to Henry III) to evade government-imposed import duties and taxes. And when the government decides to curb this right, the whole village quietly rises up in a comical rebellion.

Starring Roger Livesey, Honor Blackman, Richard Burton, Frederick Leister