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Reviews
Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)
Not a patch on the 1967 adaptation
I watched this adaptation of Hardy's novel for the first time this evening, hoping it would at least have some of the spark of the original 1967 version. It does not. Carey Mulligan was cool, distant and just not convincing, whereas Julie Christie was sexy and emotional as well as being a hard-headed business woman. The male leads in this new version were equally like cardboard cut outs, although Gabriel Oak did have something of the original Gabriel about him. The memorable scenes from the original version just were not there, for example the meeting of Troy and Bathsheba at Maiden Castle, the actual Iron Age hill fort, was played out in a wood.....and was not at all sexy. The lesser characters also did not come over as country farm workers....the scenes where they sang and got drunk just were not good enough. If you want to get the closest feel to what Thomas Hardy was writing about, stick to the 1967 version and read the novel too.
My Brother Jonathan (1948)
My review contains a spoiler
This film cropped up on Talking Pictures, Freeview last week. For its time, it was an entertaining film, but was very truncated and the ending is NOT happy. All the way through this story Jonathan keeps losing out to his brother, even after the brother is killed in the war. But the most ironical happening is reserved for the ending, which is very sad. I suggest you read the book, by Francis Brett Young, to get the full story. By the way, I noticed Leslie Howard's son, who was the image of his father.