Sense and Sensibility

"Sense and Sensibility" (1971), directed by David Giles, is one in a long list of successful BBC adaptations of novels by Jane Austen. The BBC productions are known for their high production values. I was surprised that another reviewer found the production values to be just adequate. I thought they were excellent. (Not excellent for 1971, but truly excellent.)

As always with the BBC, the ensemble acting is very good. Both Joanna David as Elinor Dashwood, and Ciaran Madden as Marianne Dashwood are beautiful in a slender, graceful way. (And they could easily be sisters.) The three male leads, Robin Ellis as Edward Ferrars, Clive Francis as John Willoughby, and Richard Owens as Colonel Brandon act well enough, but somehow they didn't stand out as vastly different from one another. This differentiation needs to happen if the adaptation is going to be fully successful. I thought Ellis was excellent as Edward Ferrars, but Francis as Willoughby wasn't dashing enough, and Owns as Brandon didn't strike me as a military hero.

Patricia Routledge, as the kindly but very talkative Mrs. Jennings, steals every scene in which she appears. Hers is a supporting role, but it's her character that you'll remember when the details of the rest of the film begin to fade.

Of course, Austen's novels can be painful to see or read in the 21st Century, because women's roles were so constricted and their options were so few. For women like the Dashwoods, their main concern had to be to make a good match. A well-bred young woman could hope to be a wife and mother, or she could be a governess, but that's where the choices ended. Although both women profess a certain indifference to marriage, the reality was that marriage was the one realistic option open to them. A bad marriage would ruin their lives, so they had to take infinite care. Gossip and intrigue swirl around all the young women, and the gossip and intrigue inevitably revolve around who is going to marry whom. The book--and the film-- reflect this reality, but it's not a pretty picture, especially from our historical perspective.

As in any other film portraying rural 19th Century England, this movie would look better in a theater. However, it was made for TV, so it doesn't lose too much on the small screen. We saw it on DVD and it worked very well. This is a very good movie that's worth finding and seeing.

I enjoyed this miniseries; as usual, the Brits make you feel like you've traveled back in time, everything looks, and everyone sounds so authentic.

I especially liked Joanna David as Elinor Dashwood, she was perfect for the role and played it very well. I also liked Ciaran Madden as Marianne, though I think she was a bit over the top in some scenes.

I also liked seeing two familiar faces from two of my fav British shows: Robin Ellis, the original Ross Poldark (and in my opinion, the best), as Edward Ferrers, and Patricia Routledge, better known as Hyacinth Bucket (pardon me, that's "Bouquet"!), playing Mrs. Jennings.

The series gives the whole story without getting bogged down with unnecessary detail. Worth watching!

Joanna David (Elinor), Robin Ellis (Edward) Patricia Routledge (Mrs Jennings) and Clive Francis (Willoughby) are good enough actors to bring this clunky version to as much life as possible. Ciaran Madden (as Marianne) is seemingly incapable of portraying her exuberance and youthful silliness as anything other than hysterical insanity. The Misses Steele are like pantomime Ugly Sisters, far too old for a start, and desperately signaling their nastiness because we are not capable of working it out from Austen's writing.All the other characters are instantly forgettable. Large chunks of the story are left out, which makes it a poorer experience, and hard to understand - especially all the unnecessary coyness over Colonel Brandon's "niece". Totally dilutes Willoughby's libertine ways. There seems to be a total ignorance of Regency manners, with lots of emotion very clearly over-enunciated!

It looks as though it has been filmed almost on a stage; glimpses of obvious backdrops though open doors, for example, and the lighting is quite flat. Costumes are irritatingly inaccurate, and hair and make up screams 1970s.

This is worth watching as a comparison to the other adaptations, but it does not come up very well against them.

Some actors & actresses play a part which is so indelibly fixed in the public mind because their own personality is so similarly shaped like the part they assume that sometimes they receive acting awards for authenticity.Such is the case with Patricia Routledge who played Hyacinth Bucket in the 1990s sit-com "Keeping up Appearances".In the 1971 TV series of Sense & Sensibility Hyacinth (Patricia) looked 25 years younger than her most famous part when she played Mrs Jennings who takes a surrogate mother type role to the two Dashwood sisters Marianne & Elinor.

The innate characteristics of actors can never be entirely counterfeited despite the passage of years.Each of us carries a unique blueprint of our personality with us for life.So it was that I immediately spotted Joanna David as Elinor from when 24 years later she would play Mrs Gardiner in the highly acclaimed TV mini series of Pride & Prejudice.I suspect also Robin Ellis earned his laurels playing Edward Ferris for his most famous role of Poldark.

I also noticed the director, Denis Constanduros also directed another TV Jane Austen classic of "Persuasion" in the early 1970s which I can recommend and which I saw on YouTube earlier.I preferred Kate Winslet's Marianne (1995) to that of Ciara Maddern (1971), & Charity Wakefield (2008) probably because her character concentrated more on her musical ability, a time in history of romantic poets and musicians & composers which I love.I awarded this 1971 version 8/10 as it was well produced and acted and not studio bound but had some interesting location shots.

This early colour production of Jane Austen's novel has some strong casting (Joanna David as Elinor, Robin Ellis as Edward Ferrars, Clive Francis as Willoughby, Patricia Routledge as Mrs Jennings) and stays reasonably close to the novel, although the third Dashwood daughter, Margaret, does not appear.

All the main events of the novel are here, and portrayed very well; despite the low budget this production also boasts some effective costumes and uses colour well. In comparison to other versions, this stands up well but perhaps the most recent television version is stronger, and the Emma Thompson film more sumptuous.

If you like Austen adaptations this is certainly worth a look, and is available in the USA and in the Netherlands on DVD.