Hotwok2013 "Pride & Prejudice" is easily the favourite of all of Jane Austen's six published novels. Many literary critics have tried to analyse why her books are still so popular in this day & age around 200 years after they were written. Probably the best reasons are that the themes of her novels, (love & marriage), are relevant at any time period & that she was just so darned good as a writer. Taken purely as a love story It is probably without equal which explains why it has been adapted for film & television so often. This 1980 version stars Elizabeth Garvie as Elizabeth Bennett who plays the sensible & spirited young lady really well but, for me David Rintoul as Fitzwilliam Darcy is even better. To my mind, he plays the proud, haughty & extremely handsome Darcy precisely as written & envisioned by Jane Austen. He is aloof, stiff & unemotional which makes it easy to see why Elizabeth dislikes him so much at first. Quite a number of reviewers of this adaptation of Pride & Prejudice have criticised Rintoul's performance. They claim he plays Darcy with too little emotion & in comparison with Colin Firth's 1995 performance is dull, uninteresting & unromantic. It is true that he isn't as outwardly romantic as played by Colin Firth but I disagree with that criticism. Rintoul nails him precisely as written by Jane Austen & what a shame we cannot get her opinion!. Another standout acting performance is given by Judy Parfitt as Darcy's aunt Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Ms Parfitt has a natural regal bearing combined with a beautifully intoned speaking voice & can just nail an upper-crust woman effortlessly. She also plays her with such a commanding air that you almost cannot help disliking her. That, too, is also true to the spirit of the book as written by Jane Austen. Malcolm Rennie is also excellent as the pompous, somewhat comical vicar Mr. Collins. The scene in which he proposes marriage to Elizabeth & is rejected by her is particularly well played by both of them. Both Priscilla Morgan & Moray Watson are also extremely good as Elizabeth Bennett's mother and father, respectively. Sabina Franklyn also does well playing Elizabeth's very pretty older sister Jane who will fall in love & marry Darcy's best friend Mr. Bingley (Osmund Bullock). Tessa Peake-Jones plays her bookish younger sister Mary who later got a more fames television role as Delboy's love interest Raquel in Only Fools & Horses. Natalie Ogle plays the youngest of the five Bennett sisters Lydia who is fatuous & will enter into a hasty, sham marriage with the handsome, (but deceitful & untrustworthy), Mr. Wickham (Peter Settelen). None of the sisters attend the marriage ceremony & when they return from their honeymoon Lydia is eager to tell her sisters all about it. Elizabeth does not want to know & delivers one of the books most memorable put-down lines. "I do not think there can be too little said on the subject!". There isn't a weak performance by anyone in the entire cast. The 1995 TV production with Colin Firth & Jennifer Ehle was pretty good, but this 1980 BBC production dramatised by Fay Weldon is closer to the book & definitely superior in my opinion.

HelenMary I'm not saying the other adaptations of Pride and Prejudice aren't good; they are. However, this one was the one I saw first (other than perhaps the Lawrence Olivier version), and I love it. It's done very sympathetically to the period, I think with my uneducated eye, and the actors aren't conventional or modern looking, and the script is brilliantly portrayed. David Rintoul is the perfect Darcy, old fashioned and haughty, and Lady Catherine is just splendid. Miss Elizabeth Bennett is the right combination of attractive, intelligent and with her own type of feminine arrogance, applicable to the day. All the characters are so amplified yet not so much that they are caricatures of themselves, which makes for memorable watching. Other versions are sort of watered down versions of this one. Watch it, the only problem is that it's quite hard to get hold of - I got my copy on DVD from the US on Amazon having only the video before. It's great easy watching for a mini series, and it's both touching and hilarious in equal part. It's a little cheesy in places but that's intentional I think.

eagleeyedcritic This is by far the best version of P&P out there. I have seen all of them but the old TV versions before 1940 (although I did see the 1940 movie which was ludicrous and so far from the truth) thus I wouldn't waste my time on it nor the comedy version = yikes! I just checked the ratings to compare and am shocked to see that the modern Keira Knightley version is rated higher than this one! It must be for those who prefer Hollywood as that version is much father from the book and what Jane Austen wrote or ever could have intended. Even the Colin Firth version was better than that and again, I am surprised to see that version rated higher than this one. Colin Firth is a great actor but he was much too open to be a good or authentic Mr. Darcy. He would have been considered improper back in those days (as would have the Mr. Darcy in the Keira Knightley version). This Mr. Darcy portrayed by David Rintoul is most definitely the closest anyone has come to the true Mr. Darcy. He is handsome and appears haughty and arrogant as he should initially. He is rigid and barely betrays the passion that he feels... making it all the more powerful when he finally discloses his feelings. I loved this version and have watched it many times.If you are a true and authentic Jane Austen fan then you must see this version that is well cast, well acted and goes above and beyond any other versions.

alix2468ks I did like this version of Pride and Prejudice. There were just a few things that I didn't care for, especially compared to the 1995 version.I hated Natalie Ogle's Lydia. I don't know why all of these BBC productions of Jane Austen with immature girls have the worst actresses playing them? Sense and Sensibility (1980) is the same way. They choose these young looking actresses on nothing more than their looks and their ability to read a script apparently. The only Lydia I've liked is Julia Sawalha, she played it genuinely, at the right age, and laughed naturally. Everyone else, including Jena Malone, plays her too young and with forced laughter. Like perhaps they are overcompensating for age, even though Sawalha was the oldest to play her, I believe. All the other Lydia's shriek and carry on, and I never really got that impression from the book. I don't think she is that different from other teenagers nowadays, well a middle schooler from now. Ogle played her like a 10-year old.My other problem was that they didn't do any voice-over until the the 3 or 4th episode. It was very strange that everyone was reading their letters that they had written aloud. As I watched I was seriously wondering if they just didn't know how to do them, but then I remembered that they have been doing voice-overs since talkies have been in existence. It is a worthless point but it really bothered me.Other than that, I have very few complaints. I did find it interesting that they used the same girl who played Elinor in Sense and Sensibility (1980) to play Charlotte. I was always under the impression that Elinor was relatively attractive (at least not plain), and I had resigned myself, while watching S & S, into thinking that tastes have changed.. but apparently not, if they used her to play the plain Charlotte. Anyway, that was a big tangent.I do agree with some of the other posters that the levels of beauty in the Bennet girls were better portrayed in this film than the 95 version. I think Susannah Harker is very handsome and I appreciate that now, but when I first saw it I kept thinking how much more attractive Jennifer Ehle was than Harker. I would say that classically speaking and for the time period, Harker would have been the most beautiful girl, she has a lovely neck and profile. Another tangent, sorry.But yes, it is a good film, but for me, the 1995 version will always be my number one. All the actors are great and I prefer the locations much more.