SimonJack English author Isabel Colgate wrote a 1980 novel by this same title that paints a picture of a segment of British society after the turn of the 20th century and before World War I. Critics and reviewers of the day talked and wrote about the conflicts "The Shooting Party" covered. The "sport" of overindulgent killing of game birds, versus the rights of animals. The self-absorption among the idle wealthy and the disdain for the lower classes. How many in the aristocracy considered their class above reproach for dalliances, adultery and such."The Shooting Party" shows life amid some of the class of lords, ladies and idle rich in 1913. Their lives indeed seem to have so little meaning. They seemed to live for mere pleasure or self-indulgence, in which they find so little pleasure. The genius in the making of this film is in the tedium the audience soon begins to feel by this lifestyle. The women and men gossip idly, the parties ride and trek to the fields to take up shooting positions with canes to sit on. The servants reload and hand shotguns to the wealthy. Two of the men compete for kills, and the pheasants fly and die by the droves. And, the lower classes beat the bushes to scare up the game and wait on the wealthy. The wealthy eat, imbibe and gossip at all times. Some carry on adulterous affairs at night. And they get up in the morning to do it all over again. A fine cast conveys the emptiness of such life. James Mason is Sir Randolph Nettleby, who appears to have no taste for these social affairs. So, when John Gielgud's Cornelius Cardew arrives as a protester for animal's rights, Sir Nettleby finds something finally of interest. Edward Fox plays Lord Gilbert Hartlip, as only Fox can portray a total snob who is completely detached from those around him - except for a spark of competition with another shooter. Even after shooting one of Sir Nettleby's gamekeepers by careless action, he is more concerned about the delay the accident causes than the man he has shot. All he can say after looking on the wounded man, whom Sir Randolph tends to, is "Pity." The man shot is gamekeeper Tom Harker, played by Gordon Jackson. Cheryl Campbell plays the adulterer Lady Aline Hartlip, Lord Gilbert's wife. Dorothy Tutin plays Sir Randolph's wife, Lady Minnie Nettleby. Rupert Frazer plays Lionel Stephens, and Judi Bowker plays Lady Olivia Lilburn. The film has many more fine cast members who do very well. The shooting accident puts a pale on the affair. As the credits run at the end, the film has a list of males who were part of the story, and who were killed within a few years in World War I. This adds further to a sense of the foibles of the self-centered culture and lifestyle of the period. The listed casualties of the war, from characters in the film, were: Captain Lionel Stephens MC, killed in action in 1915 at Ypres; Oberstleutnant Count Tibor Rakassyi, KIA in 1916 at Stobykhva; Lieutenant Marcus Nettleby, KIA in 1916 at Delville Wood, The Somme; Lance-Sergeant Walter Weir, dies of wounds in 1915 at Gallipoli; and Private John Haskins, KIA in 1917 at Passchendaele. This isn't an entertaining film, but one that some may appreciate who enjoy history.

nomorefog 'The Shooting Party' is certainly rare but gained a respectable following when it was released on video many years ago. It's an English film, comfortably paced on repeated viewings and yes, I can understand how it may be less than riveting for people who aren't attuned to its wavelength. It's beautiful to look at, the characters are graceful and civilised, and they talk about interesting and thought provoking things. I happen to like 'The Shooting Party'. It is what it is, and you can take it or leave it – I prefer to do the former.The story concerns the decline of the Edwardian class in England a year before the outbreak of WW1, as exemplified by a group of people gathered at a great mansion to partake of the 'shooting party' of the title. There is a lot of rumination on the part of the characters concerning the passing of time, and how their class, with all its privileges may not have much longer to last. They are being legislated out of existence by the Liberals, and pushed to one side by the rise of the labour movement. The death of the King Edward VII a traditionalist and ally, is also a harbinger of harder times ahead and all of these changes will make England a very different place to what it previously was.James Mason stars as the owner of the mansion and the head of the party. A particularly welcome member of the cast is John Gielgud who gives a wonderful performance as a servant who exhibits an intense aversion to animal hunting for sport and does everything he can to put a spanner in the works of the shooting party. Gielgud represents the naysayer of the declining era, indicating that the new democratic post-war middle class are more concerned with commerce, rights and liberty rather than ownership. It's a treat for the audience to discover the metaphors that exist in the revelation of plot and the characters which drive 'The Shooting Party' along to its conclusion. The film's execution is traditional, there is nothing new to in its technique to wonder about. The story itself is what will capture the audience's attention, that is if they find the subject interesting, despite the film's plot being admittedly, a little on the slim side.I am not normally a big fan of this genre of Merchant/Ivory type films and others like them that are for example, gorgeous to look at, but perhaps a tad boring. Films like this take a chance in not trying to be everything to everyone. They tackle a specific subject and stick to it, and it may not even be of particular interest to mainstream audiences. 'The Shooting Party' continues to find an audience by the quality of its writing, the performances and the execution, and discerning members of the public if they persevere, will discover the fruits of a quality endeavour.

Kasca As a minimum, worth seeing for the superb moment when Nettleby (Mason) and Cardew (Gielgud) discuss the printing of pamphlets.Gielgud's role as the protester, and the various reactions to him, including from the customers in the local hostelry, are perfectly scripted and acted - and strangely moving. It is one of the film's multiple narrative threads.There are no points for seeing that the shooting party prefigures the global conflict to come. Nor is it really the case that the setting of the film is in some transitional world between a vanishing bucolic idyll and our modern age. The relationship between violence and civil behaviour that the film explores were as well known to the Victorians as to us. The Great War revealed nothing new about man's inhumanity. The only extra element, which the film darkly hints at, is the scale and consequences of the violence which modernity is capable of inflicting.

GulyJimson "The Shooting Party" (1985) opens and closes with procession carrying a litter across an open field and receding into the distance. It is late afternoon. The wistful score underlines the autumnal sense of melancholic desolation.. It is a marvelous establishing shot setting the tone of the film while serving as a metaphor for the passing of the British Empire. "The Shooting Party" beautiful re-creates the elegiac autumn of 1913; the last Britain enjoyed before the Great War wiped out a generation of English youth, and shattered forever the confident complacency of the Edwardian world. The fabric of this society is examined through the inter-related actions of a group of aristocrats invited to spend the weekend at the estate of Sir Randolph and Lady Nettleby, along with the various servants who attend them, as well as many of the locals who live on the estate. The weekend activities include riding, discussions on art and politics, masquerades, cards, walks and picnics as well as the sport of shooting game. Also to be enjoyed will be illicit trysts, acceptable only because they remain unspoken and discreet. Lady Aline Hartlip, (Cheryl Campbell) addicted to speculation/gambling has just such a dalliance with Sir Ruben Hergersheimer, (Aharon Ipale) "the Israelite" as he is called. He pays for her gambling debts in exchange for sexual favors. It is an arrangement she is only too happy to oblige, given her loveless marriage to Lord Gilbert. It is this obsession with maintaining appearances at all costs that is one of the main preoccupations of the privileged class.While on the surface all seems well, there are tensions and stresses at work both at home and abroad threatening the stability of the established order. And they affect each of the classes. The aristocrats are determined to maintain the appearance of stability despite the looming threat of war and the fading of the old social order, while the serving class ape their masters with the hope of acquiring gentility. Lionel Stephens's manservant actually takes one of his master's discarded love letters from the waste basket in an attempt to use it's refined language to woo the maid he is in love with, while the locals hired to act as beaters for the shoot, grumble-quietly-about unfair conditions. All sense that change is coming, but still cling to the illusion that the Empire will endure, because however staid, restrictive and even provincial, it provides a sense of security and permanence. Because the aristocracy no longer fulfills its intended function as rulers, what else can it do except indulge its pleasures too seriously. This observes Sir Randolph, played by James Mason in a final film performance of immense wisdom and dignity, is a sure sign of a civilization in decline. This "playing the game" too seriously generates the unspoken rivalry between Lord Gilbert Hartlip, ( a wonderfully haughty Edward Fox) who feels his preeminence as the best shot in England being threatened by Lionel Stephens, a rising young barrister, sensitively played by Rupert Frazer. Stephens only takes up the challenge to impress his lady fair, Lady Olivia Lilburn, (Judi Bowker) with whom he is in love but who is married to his friend Lord Lilburn. Lilburn, (Robert Hardy) concerned with maintaining standards, deeply loves Olivia, but has no illusions about life being able to imitate art as his wife does. This contest of "knights" will ultimately have tragic consequences. And this is one of the points of the film; even the noblest ideals when divorced from reality must end in failure or worse, catastrophe. As the Great War proved with terrible finality the concept of "Nobless Oblige" in the modern age can be seen as not only foolish, but fatal. And yet paradoxically it is this very striving for the unattainable, the very real desire to make those ideals real, that ennobles the lives of both of the young would be lovers.In war the innocent suffer the most. In a desperate attempt to add another shot to his belt, because it is clear he is losing the contest-his wife even suggests he should cheat-Lord Gilbert accidentally wounds one of the beaters, Tom Harker, played by the wonderful Gordon Jackson in one of his best film roles. Harker is an individualist. He is also a poacher, and a supporter of Lloyd George, and much liked by the Nettlebys-especially Sir Randolph, who sees in him the embodiment of the simple life-something for which he yearns. His loss is felt personally but it is also metaphorical because it is symbolic of the terrible losses Britain will sustain in the coming war. In fact, Harker's final words are, "God save the British Empire!" and the field they carry his body across recalls those fields in Flanders and Passchendaele in which many Englishmen will cross and never return, while the large scale slaughter of the fowl at the hands of the party armed with shotguns brings to mind the horrors of the Western Front in which tens of thousands of youths will be paraded in front of machine guns and artillery only to be mowed down like so much wheat. Outrage at the blood sport is expressed by animal rights activist and pamphleteer Cornelius Cardew played with delightful eccentricity by John Gielgud. His scene with Mason, whom he is brought before for his attempt to place himself between the hunters and the hunted, is the best scene in the film and certainly the most memorable. There is a genuine warmth between these two acting greats, performing together again for the first time since their collaboration in "Julius Ceasar" thirty-one years earlier. Actually, the entire cast should take a bow for it is an impressive ensemble work. "The Shooting Party" gives us a glimpse into the mindset of an era that has long since vanished and exists now only in the mind's eye.