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The Rare Breed - 1966 This is a western directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. The cast includes: James Stewart, Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Juliet Mills, and Don Galloway. Brian Keith plays a Scot ranch owner who wants to marry Maureen O'Hara character. He asks her to come for tea and plays bagpipes to welcome her (surely it is the ideal music for courting). This a very pleasant movie.

The Return of Martin Guerre (Le Retour de Martin Guerre)- a marriage sequence features a bodego player.

 A River Runs Through It  - 1992 A Robert Redford film. A piper plays Mairi's Wedding at a picnic. The shot shows the back of the piper's head as he is playing.

Davy Spillane on Uilleann Pipes,Riverdance

Riverdance - Dec. 1996 A PBS special which presents a version of the London stage show,  Riverdance . It features (mainly) Irish (step) dance and music. The music is composed by Bill Whelan. The Uilleann pipes, played by Davy Spillane, are heard in many sets and featured in the solo, Caoineadh Cu Chulainn, a lament for Cuchulain, the great Irish hero and leader who fought the sea.

Road to Avonlea - This is a Canadian TV series by Kevin Sullivan productions (CBC Family Hour). Based upon the works of L M Montgomery, it is set in Prince Edward Island. In an earlyish episode (c.1991), there is a scene in which a haggis is piped in at a dinner honoring hotel owner Simon Tremayne's noble brother or cousin. In another (c. 1995), a local farmer plays Scotland the Brave to his Angus bull and maybe a cow he should mate. In a 1996 episode , he wants to play Scotland the Brave with a ragtime beat at a talent show audition honoring singers who come from the States, but they cut him off by the second bar, or so. Later, in a sequel (Happy Christmas, Miss King, c. 1998), the time is WWI, and a band which looks like the Black Watch marches with (non-kilted) soldiers past a hospital. They are playing Scotland the Brave. Later they play Highland Laddie near an enlistment booth.

The Road to Bali - Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. A south Pacific princess, played by Dorothy Lamour, is the product of a Scottish father and island mother. To impress her at a banquet, Bob and Bing come out in highland attire carrying what appear to be real pipes. They tell a few Scottish jokes and then throw the pipes to the ground to engage in something sort of like a fling. This probably appealed to those who don't like the pipes more than it did to those who do.

The Road North - stars Davey Spillane - Is this the same movie as Traveller? Some have suggested that it might be.

 Robinson Crusoe on Mars  1964 He crash lands on Mars and makes Martian bagpipes out of reeds he finds in an underground canal. A correspondent calls this a cool movie, although, I hardly think that my priority upon landing on Mars would be to fabricate a set of bagpipes. Maybe that is what makes it cool.

 Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue - 1953 This Disney movie was filmed on location in Scotland and stars Richard Todd, Glynis Johns, James Robertson Justice, and Finlay Currie, and is far better family entertainment than the 1995 version! Muir Mathieson was the music director, and the soundtrack was composed by Cedric Thorpe Davie. The pipes definitely do not sound like the modern pipes, whether or not this was an attempt by the filmmakers to make it realistic to the time period. The movie begins with a Highland attack upon a column of Redcoats, and their charge is led by the piper who soon throws down his pipes to draw his sword and fight. There are also pipes played at Rob and Helen Mary's wedding, and a piobaireachd is played at the funeral of Rob's mother: her body is lying in a boat, Rob and Helen Mary sit behind it, and the piper stands at the bow playing as it is rowed across a loch to the graveyard. Usually included at the beginning of this movie presentation is a story about Scotland and its culture, featuring home movie-like footage of highland dancing and pipe bands at a highland games in the 1950's (very amusing), as well as a story about Robert the Bruce and the legend of the spider.

Fred Morrison on Scottish Small Pipes
Rob Roy

 Rob Roy  - 1995 - Rob borrows 1000 pounds to buy cattle to sell in England for a profit, but the money is stolen, and his man murdered. There is a lot of violence, sword fights, sex, but it is a very good movie for all that. It features music by  Capercaille  with Paddy Moloney and Davey Spillane on Uilleann pipes. The Scottish small pipes played by Fred Morrison at a céilidh early in the film. As the soldiers leave the castle in pursuit of Rob Roy, the tune played is O'Sullivan's March (aka, The rock and the wee pickle tow? ).

 Rockets Galore  -1957 Sequel to Whisky Galore and also known as Mad Little Island in the USA. Starring Donald Sinden, Gordon Jackson, Ronald Corbet. The island is threatened with the development of a rocket testing range. A lone piper plays a lament after the sacred rock, signifying the safety of the island, rolls down from its perch on top of a hill. The islands join in the lament in Scottish Gaelic.

Rocko's Modern Life - TV series - In one episode, there is a vacation trip to Phlegm Rock. The car Rocko is travelling in has an 8-track tape permanently playing, called "The All-time Greatest Disco Hits of the 70's, as Played by the MacThrifty Brothers Bagpipe Band." Features an awful celt-rock bagpipe version of Stayin' Alive, and to finally shut the thing up Rocko demolishes the vehicle. This makes sense to me.

George Hall noodling,
Rover Dangerfield

 Rover Dangerfield - 1991 This animated movie starring Rodney Dangerfield featured George Hall, currently Pipe Major Los Angelos Police Emerald Society Pipe Band, playing several tunes as well as some noodling in the turkey scene.

Rudy - contains piping in an Irish pub.


 

 

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