Bizarrely this version shows us only the aftermath of Culloden, but anyone who has ever seen Peter Watkins' 1964 cinema-verite TV version will never forget Olivier Espitalier-Noel's callow, French-accented Bonnie Prince Charlie snootily looking on from horseback as the Jacobites are routed. He couldn't be further removed from David Niven's dashing Young Pretender in this monumental Technicolor folly, upon which the critics fell en masse following a long and troubled production.
You know what to expect after the first five minutes when lovely shots by the second unit of authentic highland heather is replaced by a fascinatingly unreal studio glen where Niven meets Morland Graham as Donald the Shepherd for the first time.
And so it continues for the next two hours as scenes between men in wigs huffing & puffing alternate with further phony-looking studio exteriors shot at Shepperton in which the clouds never move; relieved by very occasional (and brief) second unit footage actually shot in Scotland, and by a darting-eyed Charles Goldner as the relentless Captain Ferguson.
You know what to expect after the first five minutes when lovely shots by the second unit of authentic highland heather is replaced by a fascinatingly unreal studio glen where Niven meets Morland Graham as Donald the Shepherd for the first time.
And so it continues for the next two hours as scenes between men in wigs huffing & puffing alternate with further phony-looking studio exteriors shot at Shepperton in which the clouds never move; relieved by very occasional (and brief) second unit footage actually shot in Scotland, and by a darting-eyed Charles Goldner as the relentless Captain Ferguson.