X," who teased club audiences for years with the ad line, "Is he or isn't he?" Chelsom was raised in the seaside town of Blackpool, where Locke performed for 19 seasons, and many of the characters in the pub are drawn more or less from life. Large parts of it are based on fact, according to the film's notes not only was there a real Josef Locke who fled the British taxmen, but there was a "Mr. "Hear My Song" was co-written by Chelsom and Dunbar, is their first feature, and is a labor of love as well as wit.
The ending goes on a bit too long, but then, when you've spent a whole movie looking for a man, you're probably reluctant to leave him without an encore. Locke, when he is found, is played by Ned Beatty, who won an Academy Award for his supporting work in " Network," and who might seem an unlikely choice for an Irish tenor but plays the role with the robust presence of a man who, finding himself on a stage, would know exactly what to do there. Within five minutes the movie has created the sense of a tight-knit community, and within half an hour it has created the considerable miracle of making us care whether Mickey can find Josef Locke. He comes from that small band of British and Irish directors who embrace human comedy, who love the quirks and weaknesses of their characters, and who like to make their points in small, sly asides. But Dunbar appeals to them with the same kind of know-it-all charm used by Denis Lawson, as the man who seemed to hold every job in " Local Hero." All of this sounds like fodder for 30 minutes of sitcom, but not the way "Hear My Song" is directed by Peter Chelson. He has his work cut out for him the locals in Ireland are so secretive they make Appalachian hillbillies look like talk-show guests.
X, and so Mickey feels he must go to Ireland on a mission of honor to find the real Josef Locke, wherever he may be.
The pub patrons are outraged, but Mickey has bigger problems at home, where his fiancee's mother ( Shirley Anne Field) was once, long ago, in love with Locke.