Jane Austen's novels: BBC and other Film/Video adaptations Jane Austen's novels: BBC and other Film/Video adaptations"So she wouldn't be available for book signings?"
-- An anonymous American network executive (?), on being told that Pride and Prejudice was published for the first time in 1813.
"Seeing a movie or television adaptation of any of Jane Austen's works is like hearing a symphony of Mozart played on a harmonica."
-- heard on Swedish television's Nattcafé, late June '96
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Note: This page is mainly a relic of a period when information about older Jane Austen films in IMDB was incomplete, no one had ever heard of DVD, and it was not always easy for people to tell which movie was which, or how videotapes available in the United States were different from videotapes sold in the UK.
Nowadays the older BBC movies are available on DVD, and the Jane Austen filmography page contains more up-to-date information.
Go to the Internet Movie Database for information about films from Jane Austen's novels
Go to Jane Austen movie adaptations web page
Go to CNN article (by Sherry Dean) on the recent Austen movies
Go to the `Republic of Pemberley' (Jane Austen writings and adaptations discussion board site, including the Pride and Prejudice movie discussion bulletin board)
Go to parodic scheme for an "All_Austen" cable channel
Go to the "Photograph" of Jane Austen lounging at a Hollywood poolside <JPEG> (as seen in Entertainment Weekly).
The following notes on film versions of Jane Austen's novels are mainly the personal opinions of Mr. Wentz (I myself don't even own a VCR, or subscribe to cable!). See the article "Jane Austen Adapted" by Andrew Wright (Nineteenth Century Fiction vol. 30, #3, December 1975, pp.421-453) for a list of earlier stage, screen, radio, and television adaptations of the novels.
Included below is a list of BBC videos of Jane Austen novels; I have no link with the BBC apart from a vague chauvinistic loyalty to the old values of the corporation, of which these videos are a fine example.
Among the other dramatizations of Jane Austen is the famously inaccurate but hilarious 1940's Hollywood movie of Pride and Prejudice, with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson in their Victorian finery, which still gets an occasional airing on the movie channels (and some people still remain rather fond of it). A recent film (Clueless) takes the plot of Emma into modern-day America, and the BBC's new version of Persuasion (last entry on the list below) is to be released in selected US cinemas. Sense and Sensibility, with Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson, has opened in the US, and a new adaptation of Emma for commercial TV by Andrew Davies (who was previously involved with the recently successful adaptation of George Eliot's Middlemarch with high production values) is under way.
He is also responsible for the successful adaptation of Pride and Prejudice screened by the BBC in Britain in Autumn 1995. The last of the six episodes of Pride and Prejudice was allegedly watched by over 10 million British viewers. (The press managed to get a Pride and Prejudice angle on almost everything for the six weeks of the series; there was much discussion on topics such as period wallpaper, whether people still marry for money these days, what would have happened to the Darcy family wealth in the nineteenth century, why did the women in the TV series all seem to be wearing Wonderbras, why did Radio Times give the end away by showing Elizabeth on the cover in wedding dress, and a scandal because a village near Exeter couldn't receive BBC [channel] 1 properly and would thus be deprived of their right as Englishmen to view the denouement.) A video version was released (and sold out twice) before the last episode was first shown. The video (see below) joins the older and more literal version of Pride and Prejudice in the BBC catalogue. The older productions are a memorial to a tradition of BBC "Classic Serials", usually transmitted on Sunday afternoons for the improvement of the young, but now largely extinct due to costs. They (and Granada's Persuasion) are much closer to the original books than most modern TV writers would deem sensible. As such they have their attractions for afficionados.
(Dates in the list below refer to the date of the first availability of video, not to the date of original broadcast.)
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 15:22:46 -0500
From: RSMITH@RUNT.DAWSONCOLLEGE.QC.CA (Ray Smith)
Pride and Prejudice
Casts and Production
Script Aldous Huxley, Fay Weldon Andrew Davies
Jane Murfin
Dir or Prod Robert Z. Leonard Cyril Coke p. Sue Birtwistle
d. Simon Langton
Role 1940 1985 1995
Elizabeth Greer Garson Elizabeth Garvie Jennifer Ehle
Darcy Laurence Olivier David Rintoul Colin Firth
Jane Maureen O'Sullivan Sabina Franklyn Susannah Harker
Bingley Bruce Lester Osmund Bullock Crispin Bonham-Carter
Mr Bennet Edmund Gwynn Moray Watson Benjamin Withrow
Mrs Bennet Mary Boland Priscilla Morgan Alison Steadman
Lydia Ann Rutherford Natalie Ogle Julia Sawalha
Kitty Heather Angel Clare Higgins Polly Maberly
Mary Marsha Hunt Tessa Peake-Jones Lucy Briers
Mrs Phillips May Beatty Shirley Cain Lynn Farleigh
Mr Collins Melville Cooper Malcolm Rennie David Bamber
Mr Wickham Edward Ashley Peter Settelen Adrian Lukis
Capt Denny Marten Lamont Andrew Johns David Bark-Jones
Caroline Frieda Inescourt Marsha Fitzalan Anna Chancellor
Mrs Hurst ______ Jennifer Granville Lucy Robinson
Mr Hurst ______ Edward Arthur Rupert Vansittart
Georgiana D ______ Emma Jacobs Emilia Fox
Col Fitzw'm ______ Desmond Adams Anthony Calf
Lady Cath. Edna Mae Oliver Judy Parfitt Barbara Leigh-Hunt
Anne DeB'rgh Gia Kent Moir Leslie Nadia Chambers
Sir William E.E. Clive Peter Howell Christopher Benjamin
Lady Lucas Marjorie Wood Elizabeth Stewart Norma Streader
Charlotte Karen Morley Irene Richards Lucy Scott
Mrs Gardiner ______ Barbara Shelley Joanna David
Mr Gardiner ______ Michael Lees Tim Wylton
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 09:48:28 -0700
From: Lura Raplee
Cast of 1972 BBC Emma
(now available on CBS Fox video)
Emma Woodhouse Doran Godwin Mr. Knightley John Carson Mr. Woodhouse Donald Eccles Miss Bates Constance Chapman Mrs. Weston Ellen Dryden Mr. Weston Raymond Adamson Frank Churchill Robert East Jane Fairfax Ania Marson Mrs. Elton Fiona Walker Mr. Elton Timothy Peters Harriet Smith Debbie Bowen Robert Martin John Alkin Mrs. Goddard Mollie Sugden Mrs. Cole Hilda Fenemore Isabella Knightley Meg Gleed John Knightley John Kelland Directed by John Glenister Produced by Martin Lisemore Dramatised by Denis Constanduros Designer Tim Hervey Costume Designer Joan Ellacott Music Arranged Tom McCall Dances Arranged Geraldine Stephenson
Go to official Web site for this movie version of Emma (was aired in the U.K. in Nov. 1996, in the U.S. on Feb. 1997)Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 19:54:05 -0800
From: S Bishop
CAST LIST Emma Woodhouse .... Kate Beckinsale George Knightley .. Mark Strong Harriet Smith ..... Samantha Morton Frank Churchill ... Raymond Coulthard Miss Bates ........ Prunella Scales Mr. Woodhouse ..... Bernard Hepton Mr. Elton ......... Dominic Rowan Mrs. Elton ........ Lucy Robinson Mrs. Weston ....... Samantha Bond Mr. Weston ........ James Hazeldine Jane Fairfax ...... Olivia Williams John Knightley .... Guy Henry Isabella Woodhouse Dido Miles
Go to the official Web site for this movie version of Persuasion
In the United States, BBC videos are handled by CBS Fox Home Entertainment, 5th Floor, 1330 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019. The above is probably not a list of all available Jane Austen adaptations on tape, nor a promotion for the BBC, but a record of a series of `true' and perhaps old-fashioned adaptations unlikely to survive the upcoming boom in new and glossy movie-style productions.
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