A drama documentary of the life and death of the poet Dylan Thomas, who died in New York 25 years ago at age 39. Alcohol and a doctor's injection of morphine were the immediate causes. Ever since his childhood in Wales his life was a spectacular attempt - comic at times, serious below the surface, tragic at the finish - to survive on his own bizarre terms as the poet to end all poets. By the 1950s, that first postwar decade of uneasiness and change, Dylan Thomas was a legend to his admirers but a burnt-out case to himself. As he tours America to read poetry to rapt audiences, his past crowds in on him, the fractured memories of a man at the end of his tether.
Acting
Ronald Lacey channels Thomas's grotesque charisma.
Writing
Grapples with poetry vs. the man who sold it.
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made for BBC television but shot on 35mm, giving it an unintended cinematic gravity that theatrical releases later exploited.
Released during Britain's 1970s Dylan Thomas revival, when pubs named after him outnumbered serious readers of his work—a tension the film knowingly explores.
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