Sunday Bloody Sunday (film) Schlesinger's previous film "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), which portrayed its gay characters as alienated and self-loathing, as well as other gay-themed films of the era, including "Boys in the Band" (1970) and "Some of My Best Friends Are..." (1971). The film was released a year before the 1972 massacre of unarmed Northern Irish civilians by the British Army in Derry, Northern Ireland, an event dubbed "Bloody Sunday". Set in London, the film tells the story of a middle-aged Jewish doctor, Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch), and a divorced woman in her mid-30s, Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson), who are both involved in an
Bloody Sunday (1972) the shootings. Having witnessed the events firsthand, she was infuriated that Speaker Selwyn Lloyd consistently denied her the chance to speak in Parliament about the shootings, although parliamentary convention decreed that any MP witnessing an incident under discussion would be granted an opportunity to speak about it in Parliament. Devlin slapped Reginald Maudling, the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Conservative government, when he made a statement to Parliament that the British Army had fired only in self-defence. She was temporarily suspended from Parliament as a result. Two days after Bloody Sunday, the British Parliament adopted a