my own love affair with jane austen began in 2011
when i first studied pride and prejudice at university and since then i have seen
so many pride and prejudice adaptations i've read so many
parodies and the one that i always wanted to see but never got around to it
was the 1941 with lawrence olivier now that i've seen it i can honestly say
that it is easily one of my favorite pride
and prejudice adaptations and that includes the one with colin firth
because it is so funny it's so cleverly done
the characters i feel were all perfectly cast
and from start to finish i just felt so absorbed
in this story so there won't be any spoilers in this review
i kind of assume that if you're listening to this you have some
knowledge of what pride and prejudice is about
but just in case you don't i will read out the short description on imdb
so it says the arrival of wealthy bachelors in town causes an
uproar when families with single daughters aggressively seek engagements
including the bennett family with five eligible daughters
now it's not the entire family who is going to be seeking out his eligible
bachelor's property as the main story goes we have
elizabeth bennett and mr darcy and
several other of the bennett daughters as well are vying for this attention
i have to say some of the portrayals of the daughters were absolutely fantastic
directed by robert z leonard and screenplays written by
aldous huxley and jane murphy but for me what makes this beautiful is
the cast the comedic timing now finding prejudice is not a comedy
but it has some comedic characters in it namely for me
my favorite is mr bennis he's played by edmund gwen in this film
his comedic time is fantastic the way he just responds and reacts
to mrs bennett who's played by mary boland is just
so beautiful he embodies what i envision when i read that character so for me
that's without a doubt my favorite performance of mr bennett
elizabeth then is played by great garson she's
i was going to say she's not my favorite portrayal of
elizabeth but to be honest i haven't really got a favorite portrayal of
elizabeth i don't know it's yeah no i mean really enjoy performance
i don't have a favorite so maybe that is a contender
mr darcy is lawrence olivier and wow i mean olivier is the olivier of
olivia as he's he is his own entity he is his own being
he's completely cut above most others and his portrayal
of mr darcy was dashing fantastic appropriately arrogant
beautifully charismatic stunningly beautiful he's not colin firth
for me mr darcy is is colin firth but olivier gives a really good
performance there isn't really anybody in this who i
didn't think suited their characters um jane i i particularly liked played by
maureen o'sullivan all around the casting was very good i
felt like the pairings as well not just the individual castings but when they
were kind of coupled off or whatever i thought that kind of worked really
really well the narrative is pretty true to the book
um i can't recall any differences but it has been
a good couple of years since i read the book so there could be some differences
if you know any please let me know i'd be
very glad to hear those um the film actually won an oscar which
is not surprising to be perfectly honest with you it won the best art direction
black and white it is a black and white film and i don't know why but i think
because given the age given you know the fact that pride and
pred is a classic novel i just feel like it feels more homely
when it's in black and white it helps you to kind of immerse yourself
back in that time and be at one with the characters and i love
it it's not as mushy as i'd fear there are
certain pride and bread adaptations where they
really play on the romance aspect but this one really
tapped into the humor that austin injects into her writing
and that is something i thoroughly enjoyed so would i recommend pride and
prejudice from 1940 without question
i promise you will love it