"PERSUASION" (1971) Review

 

"PERSUASION" (1971) Review

This adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1818 novel turned out to be the first of the old Jane Austen television adaptations that the BBC aired during the 1970s and 80s. Produced and directed by Howard Baker, and adapted by Julian Mitchell; this two-part miniseries starred Ann Firbanks and Bryan Marshall.

As many fans of Austen’s novel would know, ”PERSUASION” told the story of Anne Elliot, the middle daughter of a vain and spendthrift baronet, who finds herself reunited with her former finance, a Naval officer of lesser birth named Frederick Wentworth. Eight years before the beginning of the story, Anne’s godmother, Lady Russell, had persuaded her to reject Wentworth’s marriage proposal, citing the Naval officer’s lack of family connections and fortune. She reunites with Wentworth, during a prolonged family visit to her younger sister and brother-in-law, Mary and Charles Musgrove. And the Naval officer has managed to acquire a fortune during the Napoleonic Wars. Anne is forced to watch Wentworth woo Mary’s sister-in-law, Louisa Musgrove, while he ignores his earlier attraction to her.

Many diehard Austen fans have expressed the opinion that this adaptation of her last novel has a running time that allows for the characters to be expressed with more depth than they were in the 1995 and 2007 versions. I must admit that the miniseries’ running time of 210 minutes allowed a greater depth into Austen’s plot than the two later movies. Yet, despite the longer running time, ”PERSUASION” managed to be only a little more faithful than the other two versions. One of the plotlines that Mitchell failed to include featured the injury suffered by one of Charles Musgrove’s sons, following a fall from the tree. It was this injury that delayed Anne’s reunion with Wentworth near the beginning of the story. Fortunately, the changes or deletions that Mitchell made in his script did not bother me one whit. Especially since ”PERSUASION” turned out to be a pretty solid adaptation.

However, there were times when Mitchell was too faithful to Austen’s novel. I still have nightmares over the second scene between Anne and her old school friend, Mrs. Smith; in which the latter finally revealed the true nature of Anne’s cousin, William Elliot. That particular scene seemed to take forever. And I never understood Anne’s outrage over William’s comments about Sir Walter and Elizabeth in his old letters to Mrs. Smith's husband. He had only expressed what Anne also felt about her father and older sister. And once again, an adaptation of ”Persuasion” failed to correct the problem surrounding the William Elliot character – namely his attempt to woo and marry Anne in order to prevent Sir Walter from marry Elizabeth’s companion, Mrs. Clay, or any other women . . . and guarantee his inheritance of the Elliot baronetcy. As I had stated in my reviews of the two other ”PERSUASION” movies, William’s efforts struck me as irreverent, since there was no way he could have full control over Sir Walter’s love life. Why was it necessary to show William sneaking away with Mrs. Clay in order to elope with her? Both were grown adults who had been previously married. They were not married or engaged to anyone else. I found their clandestine behavior unnecessary. And why on earth did Mitchell include Sir Walter spouting the names and birthdates of himself and his offspring in the script’s opening scene? I do not think so. In fact, this scene merely dragged the miniseries from the outset.

The production values for ”PERSUASION” struck me as top-rate . . . to a certain extent. I have to commend Peter Phillips for his colorful production designs and Mark Hall for the miniseries’ art work. ”PERSUASION” permeated with rich colors that I found eye catching. However, I have some qualms about Esther Dean’s costumes designs. How can I put it? I found some of the costumes rather garish. And the photography for the exterior scenes struck me as . . . hmmm, unimpressive. Dull. Flat. And I had some problems with the hairstyle for the leading lady, Ann Firbank. Her hairdo seemed like a uneasy mixture of an attempt at a Regency hairstyle and an early 1970s beehive. Think I am kidding? Take a gander:



My opinion of the cast is pretty mixed. There were performances that I found impressive. Morag Hood gave a very skillful and entertaining performance as Anne Elliot's vain and emotionally needy younger sister, Mary Elliot Musgrove. Marian Spencer gave a complex, yet intelligent portrayal of Anne Elliot’s godmother and mentor, Lady Russell. I was also impressed by Valerie Gearon’s subtle performance as Anne’s vain older sister, Elizabeth Elliot. And both Richard Vernon and Rowland Davies gave colorful performances as Admiral Croft and Charles Musgrove, respectively. On the other hand, Basil Dignam got on my last nerve as the vain Sir Walter Elliot. There was nothing really wrong with his performance, but many of his scenes dragged the miniseries, due to the number of unnecessary dialogue over topics that had very little to do with the main storyline. Quite frankly, a great deal of Sir Walter's dialogue bore me senseless.

And what about the story’s two leads? Ann Firbank and Bryan Marshall gave very competent performances as the two former lovers, Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth. They competently expressed their characters’ intelligence and emotions. They also made the eventual reconciliation between Anne and Wentworth very believable. Unfortunately, Firbank and Marshall lacked the strong chemistry that Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds possessed in the 1995 adaptation; the strong chemistry that Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones had in the 2007 film or Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis' chemistry in the 2022 adaptation - at least until the story shifted to Lyme Regis. I never got the feeling that Firbank’s Anne and Marshall’s Wentworth were struggling to contain their emotions toward each other in the first half of the miniseries. Every now and then, Firbank utilized sad and pensive expressions, reminding me of Evangeline Lilly’s early performances on ABC’s ”LOST”. And Marshall’s Wentworth seemed too friendly with the Musgrove sisters and polite toward Anne to hint any sense of remaining passion toward her. It was not until their encounter with William Elliot at Lyme Regis that I could detect signs – at least on Wentworth’s part – of emotion toward Anne. And it was only from this point onward, especially in the production's second-half, in which Firbank and Marshall finally conveyed a very strong screen chemistry. This was especially apparent in scenes where they met at a coffeehouse in Bath and at the opera.

In the end, I have to admit that this adaptation of "PERSUASION" struck me as entertaining. I cannot deny it. Despite being the most faithful of the three known adaptations, I had originally felt that it was probably more flawed than the latter versions. Screenwriter Julian Mitchell and director Howard Baker’s close adherence to Austen’s novel did not really help it in certain parts. In doing so, the miniseries adapted some of the faults that could be found in the novel. And the miniseries' close adaptation also dragged its pacing needlessly in the first half of Part Two. But I now realize that overall, it is just as good as the 1995, 2007 and 2022 adaptations. I take that back. I believe it is slightly better than the other adaptations. And the excellent performances by the cast, led by Ann Firbank and Bryan Marshall; along with the colorful production designs and the story’s intelligence allowed me to enjoy it in the end.

"BECKY SHARP" (1935) Review

  

"BECKY SHARP" (1935) Review

Being something of a film history buff, I have been aware of the 1935 adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847-48 novel, "Vanity Fair" for a number of years. But I have never been inclined to watch the film, until recently.

I cannot say what led to my recent interest in "BECKY SHARP". But it was a book on David O. Selznick that made me first aware of the 1935 film. John Hay "Jock" Whitney and Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney had founded Pioneer Pictures in 1933 as a means to produce color movies. "Jock" Whitney was close friends with Selznick. He even co-financed Selznick's production company, Selznick International, in 1935. Between the creations of Pioneer Pictures and Selznick International, the former released the first feature-length film to use the three-strip Technicolor process. "BECKY SHARP" is the sixth of eleven film and/or television adaptations of the Thackeray's novel. It is the first in color.

"BECKY SHARP" took its title from the novel's main character, a poor, but educated young English lady who struggles rise in the ranks of Britain's social classes during the early years of the 19th century. Becky Sharp is the orphaned daughter of an English painter and French dancer, who graduates from Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies with a friend named Amelia Sedley. Since Amelia is the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Becky manipulates her way into her friend's household, where she meets Amelia's portly and jovial brother, Joseph "Jos" Sedley. Before Becky can sink her hooks into Jos, the Sedley patriarch put an end to the budding "romance" by sending Jos away to India. Meanwhile, Becky finds employment as a governess at the estate of Sir Pitt Crawley. She eventually wins the heart and hand of Crawley's playboy son Rawdon, an officer in the British army. When news of Napoleon Bonaparte's escape from Elba reach Britain, Becky is reunited with Amelia, who has now married her childhood sweetheart George Osborne. The two women's husbands and William Dobbin are deployed to Belgium to face Napoleon's Army. But the last stages of the Napoleonic Wars proved to be the first of many crisis thrown Becky's way.

Judging from the movie's title, it is clear to me that screenwriter Francis Edward Faragoh had deleted a great deal of Thackeray's novel in order to write a screenplay with a running time of eighty-four minutes. I found it odd that a film adaptation of such a famous epic novel would have such a short running time. Other epics and movie adaptations of literary works had running times that sometimes went past two hours - including "A TALE OF TWO CITIES", "MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY", "THE CRUSADES", and "CAPTAIN BLOOD". I can only assume that a minor and newly formed production company like Pioneer Pictures could not afford to produce the first Technicolor feature film with a running time close to or over two hours. If that was the case . . . if the Whitneys were that determined to produce the first full-featured movie in color . . . they could have chosen something that was not an adaptation of a famous epic novel. I find it ironic that Mina Nair's 2004 adaptation of Thackeray's novel had received a great deal of criticism for not being truly faithful to its source. I have encountered less criticism of "BECKY SHARP" than I did for the 2004 film. Yet, the latter is more faithful than the former. One of my problems with "BECKY SHARP" is that I thought the producers, director Rouben Mamoulian and screenwriter Francis Edward Faragoh did a piss poor job of adapting Thackery's novel to the screen. I just learned that the 1935 movie is actually an adaptation of Langdon Elwyn Mitchell's 1899 play, which was an adaptation of the 1847-48 novel. I hate to say this, but the movie's running time of eighty-four (84) minutes did not serve the story.

There is so much in "BECKY SHARP" that was left out. Most of the narrative that focused upon Amelia was deleted, especially her fractious relationship with her father-in-law, Mr. Osborne. In fact, George's father never made an appearance in this film. I suspect the same could be said about Mitchell's play. The only time the movie focused upon Amelia's character arc was when Becky was personally involved . . . namely George's infatuation with Becky before the Waterloo battle and Becky forcing Amelia to face the truth about George in the movie's last fifteen to twenty minutes. It is not surprising that the movie's title was based upon the main character's name. Not only was much of Amelia's personal story deleted, the movie also rushed through Becky's stay with the Sedley and Crawley families. It seemed as if Mamoulian and Faragoh could not wait to focus on the impact of Waterloo and the marriage between Becky and Rawdon. Between the handling of Amelia's character arc and the rushed narrative in the movie's first half, it is no wonder that I found "BECKY SHARP" particularly unsatisfying.

I found other aspects of "BECKY SHARP" unsatisfying. The sound and visual quality of the movie's DVD version low in quality. The photography and color struck me as faded. And the sound is scratchy. For once, I am not blaming the movie's filmmakers. Whoever had possession of "BECKY SHARP" after Pioneer Pictures had failed to maintain its original quality. But I can blame the filmmakers on other aspects of the movie. In it, the Jos Sedley character returned to Europe with a little Indian boy in tow as his personal servant. Only the "Indian servant" was portrayed by a young African-American actor named Jimmy Robinson. To this day, I am still trying to figure out how the producers and director Rouben Mamoulian saw nothing wrong in an African-American kid portraying an Indian kid. Hollywood's casting for non-white characters seemed really skewed in this film. And then . . . there was the acting.

I am surprised that "BECKY SHARP" led to a Best Actress Oscar nomination for actress Miriam Hopkins. Granted, she handled the character's questionable morality, desperation and charm very well. Yet, Hopkins engaged in so much hammy acting that I found myself wondering why of all her performances, she ended up earning a nomination for this particular one. I wish I could say that the rest of the cast gave better performances . . . but I cannot. Other cast members gave equally hammy performances. Nigel Bruce, Alan Mowbray, Alison Skipworth, G.P. Huntley and many others were equally hammy. I could not accuse Colin Tapley of hamminess on the same scale. But I found his portrayal of William Dobbin rather dramatic. And I am not being complimentary. The only cast members who actually impressed me were Frances Dee and Cedrick Hardwicke. Dee gave a surprisingly subtle and convincing performance as the sweet and passive Amelia Sedley. Thanks to Dee's performances, audiences saw both the positive and negative aspects of Amelia's passiveness. Hardwicke was equally subtle as Becky's aristocratic "benefactor", the Marquis of Steyne. Even though Steyne is an unlikable character, Hardwicke was no mustache-twirling villain.

The only reason I would recommend "BECKY SHARP" to anyone is for historical purposes. Because this is the first feature-length motion picture in color, I would recommend this movie to any film buff. Otherwise, I would stay clear of "BECKY SHARP" and consider other adaptations of William Makepeace Thackery's novel.

"PERSUASION" (1971) Image Gallery

 

Below are images from "PERSUASION", the 1971 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's 1818 novel. Produced and directed by Howard Baker, and adapted by Julian Mitchell; the miniseries starred Ann Firbank and Bryan Marshall:




"PERSUASION" (1971) Images Gallery

"BECKY SHARP" (1935) Photo Gallery

Below are images from "BECKY SHARP", the 1935 adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847-48 novel, "Vanity Fair". Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, the movie starred Miriam Hopkins in the title role:



"BECKY SHARP" (1935) Photo Gallery

TIME MACHINE: The War of 1812

 

TIME MACHINE: THE WAR OF 1812

Today marks the 200th anniversary of when President James Madison and the U.S. Congress declared war against Great Britain and the British Empire on June 18, 1812; an act that led to the beginning of the War of 1812 (1812-1814).

The War of 1812 was a major conflict that lasted two-and-a-half years between the young United States nation and the British Empire, along with the latter's Native American allies. The conflict was fought on both land and the sea, on and near the North American continent. There were a handful of reasons that led the U.S. government to declare war on Great Britain. Here are a few:

Impressment of American Sailors - Due to the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) waged against Napoleon's French Empire, sailors aboard American ships found themselves impressed by the Royal Navy and French ships. The British, especially, claimed that many sailors that found themselves aboard American merchant ships were deserters from their Navy. And many of them were. Their efforts to impress sailors from American ships became even more excessive after 1805. The problem of impressment culminated in the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, a naval engagement between naval engagement that occurred off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia; on June 22, 1807, between the British warship H.M.S. Leopard and American frigate U.S.S. Chesapeake. The crew of the Leopard pursued, attacked and boarded the American frigate, while looking for deserters from the British Navy.

Orders in Council (1807) - This document was a series of decrees made by Great Britain that forbade French trade with the British Empire, its allies, or neutrals like the United States. The decrees were a response to France's Berlin Decree of 1806, which forbade the import of British goods into European countries allied with or dependent upon France, and installed the Continental System in Europe. The Orders in Council led the British to use the Royal Navy to enact a blockade of French ports. The British used the Orders in Council as an excuse to bombard Copenhagen, Denmark in September 1807 (Battle of Copenhagen). They did so to prevent the Danish from joining France's Continental System. The British also used their decrees as an excuse for their policy of stopping neutral (including American) ships from trading with France. President Thomas Jefferson responded to the Orders by passing the Embargo Act of 1807, which forbade U.S. ships from trading with Britain and France. The act proved to be very ineffective, unpopular, and led to economic strain in the U.S., until it was repealed in 1809. Great Britain repealed the Orders in Council on June 16, 1812. But the news of the repeal, which gave great concessions to the U.S., did not reach American shores in time to prevent Congress from declaring war on the British.

American Expansion - This is believed to be one of the major causes of the war. The Americans wanted expansion into the Native American lands of the Northwest Territory and the Upper Mississippi Valley. However, the tribes blocked their expansion and the British supported this block. The British worried about American desire for Canada, a problem that first manifested during the American Revolution. Many American historians believe that the U.S. desire for the conquest of Canada is nothing more than a staple of Canadian opinion since the 1830s and that it was never a permanent war goal, merely a tool for negotiations. However, many do believe that if the U.S. had been successful in acquiring control of Canadian lands, the government would have been very reluctant to returned the occupied territory to the British.

Despite the many reasons that led to the beginning of the War of 1812, it took certain incidents that led the U.S. to declare war on Great Britain. Confrontations between the Royal Navy and American ships (both military and commercial) like the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair and the Leander Affair, the series of economic decrees and embargo acts, and military conflicts between the Native Americans and the Americans like the Tecumseh War in which the British supported the natives, finally led to the development of a coalition of young congressmen from the Democratic-Republican party (popular in the West and the South) called the "War Hawks". Led by Henry Clay Sr. of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the "War Hawks" pushed for a declaration of war against Britain. President James Madison gave a speech to the U.S. Congress on June 1, 1812; listing American grievances against Great Britain. The House of Representatives quickly voted to declare war against the British, followed by the Senate. The conflict formally began on June 18, 1812; when President Madison signed the measure into law.

If you have any further interest in the War of 1812, the following is a sample of books you might want to read:

*"The War of 1812 - A Forgotten Conflict" by Donald R. Hickey

*"The War of 1812: Conflict for a Continent" by J.C.A. Stagg

*"1812: War With America" by Jon Latimer