Red-125 Pride and Prejudice (TV Mini-Series 1980) is a BBC production directed by Cyril Coke. It stars Elizabeth Garvie as Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Sabina Franklyn as Miss Jane Bennet, David Rintoul as Mr. Darcy, and Osmund Bullock as Mr. Bingley. Important supporting cast members are Moray Watson as Mr. Bennet, Priscilla Morgan as Mrs. Bennet, Irene Richard as Charlotte Lucas, who is married to the insufferable Mr. Collins (Malcolm Rennie). Peter Settelen portrays Mr. Wickham, a rogue in a gentleman's clothing, and Judy Parfitt plays the hateful Lady Catherine de Bourgh.Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is a superb novel, that has been admired for over 200 years. Transferring it to the screen has been a challenge, because there are so many characters, who are key to the plot, and whom are related to each other in complex ways. The BBC mini-series is 265 minutes long. Even at that length, some characters are introduced briefly and then disappear from view. The 1995 BBC mini-series is 327 minutes long. It will be interesting to see whether the extra hour will allow more character development. Possibly the extra hour will just be used to show off the wonderful BBC production capabilities.If you're familiar with the novel, I think you'll be pleased by the actors and the interpretation of the characters as decided by director Coke. The only character with whom I found a problem was Mr. Bennet. Yes--he's a curmudgeon, but we see him as a rather harsh curmudgeon. I don't think Jane Austen thought of him in that way.If you're not familiar with the novel, you might find it helpful to read the novel, or at least read a synopsis of the novel, so you can keep the characters straight.We saw this movie on the small screen (in a VHS version!) and it worked well enough. Of course, it was made for TV, so it should work on a small screen. Still, if you ever have the opportunity to see it in a theater, I'd take that opportunity. It's a good, solid depiction of a great novel. This BBC Pride and Prejudice is definitely worth seeing.

Qanqor I just don't know what planet some of these reviewers are from. I am agog that anyone can think this version vastly superior to the 1995 A&E version, or truer to the book or truer to the characters. Did we watch the same production? This one took all *sorts* of liberties with the book! Generally minor, pointless, and usually for the worse. One wise reviewer was dead-on in pointing out the wrongness of the change of Lizzy running to Darcy on getting the news about Lydia, instead of him walking in on her. But there are many lesser examples. How about the change of both scene and person saying the line about Mary having delighted everyone long enough? What did THAT achieve? At least when the A&E version added something, you can see why they did it, and I generally agreed with most (not all) of it and saw it as being in the spirit, if not the letter, of the original.Look, this is a very good version of P&P. I would rate it as the 2nd-best I've seen. The A&E is unquestionably the best, but this is much better than the 1940 (now *that* one took liberties!) and light-years ahead of the 2005 (don't get me started!). I didn't mind that the production values weren't up to the lush 1995, I'm sure they were very good for their time and place. Lizzy was pretty good. I thought Mrs. Bennett was excellent. Mr. Collins was too transparently avaricious in his first scene but after that I thought he was very good. Lydia and Mary were quite good (although Mary seemed a bit too happy and not stern enough; my take on her was always that she retreated into her books because she found so little happiness in social life, that it was more a defense than a joy, but here she seems to take real joy in it). I liked the Gardiners, they came off as appropriately steady and sensible. And, of course, I very much like that, as a miniseries, they take the trouble to really go through the whole plot and not skimp on anything.But there are, to be sure, flaws. I thought the father was poor. He has no mirth. He should have a twinkle in his eye and clearly find amusement as he makes his sarcastic comments about peoples' follies; as someone else here pointed out, he just comes off as grumpy. It's supposed to be a real change in him when he's all serious and unhappy about the Lydia affair, but we don't really see the change here because he's been so serious throughout the whole story. I also didn't really like Jane or Kitty. Kitty just somehow seems too old. And Jane just didn't convince me. About anything. That she was this rather innocent, almost naive person in the way she was always ready to think the best of *everyone*. That she really did love Bingley. Even that she was seriously ill when she was supposed to be seriously ill. It is very important that she really is seriously ill, not just has a little sniffle (if she just has a little sniffle, which is all it really comes across as here, then the mother is NOT foolish for devising the go-in-the-rain plan, and the father IS foolish for mocking his wife on that count. Which breaks both characters)But perhaps the biggest disappointment to me was Darcy. I really tried very hard to like him. But I just couldn't. He isn't *likeable*. Ever. More than in any other version, more than in the book, it just seems absolutely *impossible* to believe the servant when she goes on about what a great guy Darcy is. The point of the story is supposed to be that it is largely Elizabeth's prejudice that sees him in such a bad light, but as a viewer who actually gets to see him objectively, I too find him quite unpleasant. He never really *does* warm up, even after the failed-proposal scene. So, in the end, I don't find myself at all pulling for him and Elizabeth to get together. There's no spark, no chemistry, no feeling that they really do belong together in the end. And anyone who didn't find *that* in the book read the wrong book.(and don't think it's because I find Colin Firth sexy. As a heterosexual male, I promise you, I do not find Colin Firth sexy)The result is, that for four episodes, I was quite engrossed and entertained by this version, but ultimately the final episode left me flat. Because it is here that the ultimate get-together of Darcy and Elizabeth fails to score.

LouE15 Without doubt, this is the truest to the original novel by Jane Austen of all the versions made to date, and equally the quietest, the most stately and sedate. I won't worry about the story; anyone likely to watch this now will know already what it's about. It seems more and more likely to my sense that Elizabeth Garvie's Lizzie best represents the vision Jane Austen had of her brightest, most sparkling character: the sweetness is there, an interesting but not a perfect face (just as it should be); though perhaps just a little of the liveliness and archness that Austen wrote about is missing that you can find more easily in either Jennifer Ehle's excellent 90s TV Lizzie, or even Keira Knightley's more recent film outing. But in her bonnet and parasol, her curls wilfully asserting themselves, she's almost exactly what I imagined (apparently not everyone agrees).David Rintoul's Darcy is on first watching, excessively stiff and not particularly entertaining to watch. There is so little mobility in his face, and on occasion even in his voice, that only careful repeated viewings reveal nuances in his performance. I do find myself liking his portrayal more now: it's very subtle, to be sure, no diving into pools or striding open-shirted through dawn meadows, but once you're used to the subtlety, the great formality provides a backdrop against which Darcy's own wit and growing interest in Lizzie stand out in the gentlest relief, like the pattern on a damask cloth.So rich a text is bound to be full of favourite moments; and Weldon's script manages to include much of the wit – and some of the humour – of Austen's original, while also teasing out themes on marriage and happiness which suit her personal brief as a great feminist writer. I particularly love Lizzie's singing (I think it's dubbed but Garvie's acting of the singing is itself a pleasure to watch). The supporting cast is on the whole very good; I liked Uncle and Aunt Gardner and thought Mr Bingley and his sisters well cast. Mr Bennett was a little severe, and didn't seem to take the requisite pleasure in tormenting his wife.I didn't find Mr Wickham very charming; but then I never do. It seems to me they never make him handsome enough – how else could he charm her so much as to blind her to real goodness and excellence? I guess the makers of these programmes are always afraid he'll steal the limelight from Darcy – but since that's exactly his function in the book, take the risk! Perhaps this version has receded into time and been superseded by later attempts that speak more directly to women now. But I'll be keeping it on my DVD shelves for a long time to come, to remind myself how well a little stately simplicity can work.

sheepie87 Pride and Prejudice has been my favorite book since I was eleven years old, and I've seen every other adaptation of it--even taken a class on Romantic Comedy, in which P&P was included. However, I was determined to take this version on its own merits and try not to compare it to the other versions. Those don't matter as much as its trueness to the book in spirit and content.This is what I told myself when I put the DVD in. During the first scene, my hopes were dashed--Mary brings the news of Bingley? They just cut out the great opening banter between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet! Really, it's all downhill from here.The greatest complaint is that the people behind this movie completely sucked the life out of the story. This is a comedy of manners, people, not solely a love story. It's about human character, and here, the characters have no life at all. Look at Mr. Darcy: Aie! He looks like a walking corpse with a burr up his you know what. It seemed as if every line was painful to utter and that he was bored to death. Elizabeth has altogether no wit and shows a strange contradiction regarding her family: She whines and pleads with Jane to get better faster so she can go home! What!?!? Whining, selfish creature! She then comments with a sign of satisfaction how good it is to be home, and coddles her mother too! Agony. Because of these flaws in writing/acting, the ending is improbable, even laughably ridiculous. Sorry, did the casting director think that chap playing Wickham was a hottie? Youch.Did anyone notice how awful all of the grand houses looked? I mean, since Darcy has ten thousand pounds a year (that's a LOT of money) he could at least have the stone on Pemberley cleaned up a bit. It was all stained and icky. *shudder*If I detailed everything that was wrong with this, I'd be here for hours. I know many of you love it dearly, but I'm sorry, I see nothing to love. I see a dried-out husk of an adaptation of the most brilliant book ever.