Details

Release year: 1989

Storyline

A father-son adventure becomes an extraordinary pheasant hunt.

Top credits

Directors

Gavin Millar

Writers

Cast

Jeremy Irons — William Smith
Robbie Coltrane — Victor Hazell
Samuel Irons — Danny
Cyril Cusack — Doc Spencer

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Did you know

• Many of the incidents and characters in the book and movie were based on real-life events and people from author Roald Dahl's own life. For example, he knew a butcher who taught him the art of poaching, and Captain Lancaster (Ronald Pickup) was based upon a real and similarly-vicious teacher --- identified as "Captain Hardcastle" in Dahl's childhood-autobiography book, "Boy" --- whom Dahl had while in school; like the teacher in the book, Captain Hardcastle was ex-military and still arrogantly wanted to be addressed as "Captain", even though it was a very low rank and the war was long over; also like the fictional character, he obsessively kept an eagle-eye on his pupils to seek out opportunities to punish them, and had the creepy fire-colored hair and mustache, watery eyes, and shell-shock-caused twitching and grunting.

• The movie was filmed entirely on-location in Oxfordshire, England. Much of the filming took place in Stonor Park, the house on which is used as the location for Victor Hazell's mansion.

• Samuel Irons (Danny) is the real-life son of Jeremy Irons (William Smith) and grandson of Cyril Cusack (Doc Spencer). The idea to cast Samuel in this movie was Jeremy's own idea. They had just finished acting together in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and Jeremy thought the experience of a movie set would be good for Samuel.