MovieChat Forums > The Naked Truth (1957) Discussion > Why is Wee Sonny McG. beaten up by the I...

Why is Wee Sonny McG. beaten up by the Irish guy?

posted 19 years ago by averageandproudofit
7 replies | jump to latest

So Peter Sellers' character tries to impress the Irish guys by speaking Gaelic and they smack him replying "He's an Englishman alright." Why? What did he do wrong?

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Creative Vacuum

[–] jopeco222 18 years ago

Sellers character comes out with a mix of Irish sounding phrases finally ending up with the Welsh station name[ llanfair..pg.. !] allegedley the longest word in the Welsh language. The Irish hardmen can only assume he is anything but a native Irishman.

[–] amorrice80 16 years ago

Still seems rather unfair to lay that really vicious punch on him. Is it implying that the Irish are racist?

[–] ksf-2 15 years ago

well, they WERE trying to play a board game when he barged in... and with all the winking Sonny was doing, they also may have mis-understood what he wanted...

[–] The_Dying_Flutchman 15 years ago

And here all this time I thought it was becuz he mispronounced the word "spastic".

What is the sound an imploding pimp makes?

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bothpartiessuck 12 years ago

There's no such thing as an Irish "race" or a Welsh "race!"

Please get educated.

[–] hugh1971 10 years ago

The Irishmen were suspicious at first because of McGregor's over-the-top 'stage irishman' act, but what really angered them was when he spoke Welsh instead of Irish Gaelic, that's why the guy punched him.

There's a stereotype amongst English people (wholly undeserved, of course...) that the Irish are a beligerent people given to acts of violence. Sellers apparently was of this opinion himself, having spent a year as a tax exile in the Republic of Ireland. Listen to his spoof recording of folk songs of the British Isles on Youtube - the Irish song descends into a punch-up.