Main Cast: Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Colm Meaney, Ian McNeice, Ian Hart
Release Year: 1995
Country: UK
Run Time: 100 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
A proud Welsh community finds their civic pride and sense of community threatened by a team of surveyors in this charmingly eccentric comedy. Reginald Anson (Hugh Grant) and George Garrard (Ian McNeice) are a pair of British cartographers with Her Majesty's Ordnance Survey Office, who arrive in the small Welsh town of Ffynnon Garw, where, thanks to a linguistic quirk stemming from the British domination of Wales, many of the citizens in this town lack proper surnames and instead are identified by occupations or personal characteristics, such as Ivor the Grocer (Robert Blythe) or Johnny Shellshocked (Ian Hart). The town's greatest pride and most prominent landmark is a mountain (named, like the town, Ffynnon Garw), which they claim is the first mountain in Wales, and which helped protect the village from any number of Romans, Saxons, Norsemen, and other foreign invaders over the centuries. However, Reginald and George have some bad news for the townsfolk: under British law, a land mass must be at least 1,000 feet tall to qualify as a mountain, and according to their measurements, Ffynnon Garw comes in at only 930 feet, making it just a big hill. The citizens are shocked, insulted, and angry, and after much debate and careful measuring, Anson and Garrard conclude that they did shortchange Ffynnon Garw, but the most generous estimate still puts it at only 984 feet. Convinced that the town's honor and reputation is at stake thanks to these meddling Englishmen, the good people of Ffynnon Garw hatch a plan by which they will add fifteen feet to their "hill;" meanwhile, the easily befuddled Anson finds himself falling under the romantic spell of a beautiful but firm-willed local woman, Betty of Cardiff (Tara Fitzgerald). Believe it or not, this seemingly fanciful comedy was actually based on a true story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Kenneth Griffith - Rev. Robert Jones; Robert Blythe - Ivor the Grocer; Garfield Morgan - Davies the School; Robert Pugh - Williams the Petroleum; Robert Elson; David Lloyd Meredith - Jones the JP; Hugh Vaughn - Thomas Twp, Too; Jack Walters - Grandfather
Credit
David Daniels - Art Director, Chris Lowe - Art Director, Paul Sarony - Associate Producer, Michelle Guish - Casting, Janty Yates - Costume Designer, David Daniels - First Assistant Director, Christopher Monger - Director, Dave Martin - Editor, Bob Weinstein - Executive Producer, Harvey Weinstein - Executive Producer, Sally Hibbin - Executive Producer, Robert Jones - Executive Producer, Stephen Endelman - Composer (Music Score), George Richards - Musical Direction/Supervision, Stephen Endelman - Songwriter, Charles Garrad - Production Designer, Vernon Layton - Cinematographer, Sarah Curtis - Producer, Christopher Monger - Screenwriter
The movie is set in 1917 (with World War I in the background) and revolves around two English cartographers, the pompous Garrad and his junior, Anson, who arrive at the fictional Welsh village of Ffynnon Garw ("Rough Fountain" in Welsh) to measure its "mountain" – only to cause outrage when they conclude that it is only a hill because it is slightly short of the required 1000 feet. The villagers, aided and abetted by the wily Morgan the Goat and the Reverend Jones (who after initially opposing the scheme, grasps its symbolism in restoring the community's war-damaged self-esteem), conspire with Anson to delay the cartographers' departure while they build an earth cairn on top of the hill to make it high enough to be considered a mountain.
In regard to its humorous and affectionate description of the locals, the movie has often been compared with Waking Ned, a comedy film written and directed by Kirk Jones.
The film currently holds a 55% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Excerpt
One of the most obscure jokes in the film occurs when a mechanic is asked about a nondescript broken part he has removed from a car, and replies "I don't know what you call it in English, but in Welsh we call it a bethyngalw." In Welsh, bethyngalw has the same meaning as the word "whatchamacallit" or "thingamajig." (This is, however, explained in the novel the film is based on.)
See also
Mynydd Graig Goch a member of the Moel Hebog group of summits. This is a Snowdonia hill that became a mountain in September 2008 when it was measured by three Welshmen with GPS equipment and found to be six inches taller than previously thought.[2].[3]
