"Persuasion" (1971)TV mini-series

Director:

Howard Baker

Writers:

Jane Austen (novel)
Julian Mitchell (writer)

Release Date:

18 April 1971 (UK)

Genre:

History | Romance

Plot:

Jane Austen's last novel provides the plot for this earlier Granada miniseries. Set in pre-Victorian England...

Plot Keywords:

Spinster | Captain | British Navy | Proposal | 19th Century

Cast

Ann Firbank	...	Anne Elliot
Bryan Marshall	...	Captain Wentworth
Basil Dignam	...	Sir Walter Elliot
Valerie Gearon	...	Elizabeth Elliot
Marian Spencer	...	Lady Russell
Georgine Anderson	...	Mrs. Croft
Richard Vernon	...	Admiral Croft
Morag Hood	...	Mary Musgrove
Rowland Davies	...	Charles Musgrove
Mel Martin	...	Henrietta Musgrove
Zhivila Roche	...	Louisa Musgrove
Noel Dyson	...	Mrs. Musgrove
William Kendall	...	Mr. Musgrove
Charlotte Mitchell	...	Mrs. Clay
David Savile	...	Mr. Elliot

Runtime:

60 min (5 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Bath, Somerset, England, UK

Company:

Granada Television

Trivia:

The blue and white gown Valerie Gearon (Elizabeth Elliot) wears at Camden Place is also seen in Scrooge (1970) on a dancer at Fezziwig's ball.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Walking down country lane, actors pass WWII tank traps.

Movie Connections:

Version of Persuasion (1995) (TV)

Interesting curio, but vastly inferior to the 1995 film

How unfortunate for this 70's effort that it's been eclipsed by the superior 1995 Roger Michell film. So OK, this TV dramatisation was made nearly 30 years ago (practically TVs infancy). That duly said, really, the sheer murky brown 1970's-ness of it lends a certain comedy value. "Persuasion" was the autumn of Jane Austen's sadly short writing career. Both the book and its central character, Anne Eliot, are her most mature, thoughtful and wise, in poignant contrast to the vivacity and spirit of her early work "Pride & Prejudice". This dramatisation certainly echoes that more sedate pace, but they failed to understand in 1971 that pace is everything, even in a story like this.

A motherless, unloved Anne Eliot, unmarried at 27, is forced into renewed acquaintance with the man she rejected at 18, on the advice, the 'persuasion,' of her older family friend. Her lasting affection is tried to the utmost as she must watch him court the attention of younger, prettier girls, while she herself has lost her bloom. Then, an accident shifts the balance of the drama.

This 1971 BBC TV drama takes its ample – perhaps too ample – time to tell the story. This allows for the characters to be true to the original, but paler, less rich in tone than the 1995 film, which made considerable, but intelligent, time cuts. Despite suitably lavish sets, the costumes are a fright: each unfortunate lady is enveloped in typically high 70s sludge-coloured over-patterned vileness (highlights have to be Mrs Clay in a green velvet and slimy GOLD dress, I ask you! – and Anne Eliot's Jackson Pollock of a green, brown and yellow curtain or whatever sofa it was ripped from). This may sound trivial but with such understated fare as this, the look of the piece is important. Don't get me started on the mad towering bouffant hairdos. Of course each age loves to revile the taste of the previous, but emerging from that dark decade myself, I'm quite sure that the 70's will continue to linger on in people's minds as a benchmark for the very, very bad.

Still, Anne Firbank's somewhat too old Anne Eliot is subtle and elegant. Emma Thompson was too old to play Elinor Dashwood in Ang Lee's "Sense & Sensibility", but her extraordinary ability to portray pathos overcame that single defect, while Firbank isn't quite as good as that. But Louisa Musgrove is a triumph of hammy overacting; and Mr Eliot is utterly unlikeable. The leads generated no chemistry whatever – quite unlike Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root in the 1995 film.

One for the Austen fans only, who won't mind any of the above in the sheer pleasure of hearing those wonderful lines again and again.