User reviews

Alfred Hitchcock once confessed, that "I committed once a most fearful mistake, which I have regretted ever since, and which I never should have done. I gave a film an unhappy ending." Unfortunately, unhappy endings are unavoidable in life, so there has to be also some occasional films turning out that way. The problem with the unhappy ending here is that it is not logical, it makes no sense, you can't understand it, and therefore it is unacceptable. Hitchcock would never have tolerated it. The acting is perfect, you see Denholm Elliott and Virginia McKenna, once married, acting here together on a rare occasion, and the film is beautiful and enjoyable all the way, it is a pastoral ideal dream coming true as a scarred middle-aged man gets the chance of a new start and new love, as he actually finds a young lovely girl who loves him. He is accepted by her family and even warmly welcomed, and they plan a marriage. But the man is haunted by his past, his wife who left him in anger with almost a curse on him, the burden of his own family story as his father worked all his life to make amends for the fact that his father had been a criminal, the burden of the past lies heavy on him, and the problem is you can't be rid of it. There is a ghost like this in every family, and no matter how innocent they are, they can't get rid of it. It will always keep returning. The film offers no solution to the problem, there is no conclusion and no explanation, we are left with question marks in the dark with no clue to what really happened, and that's that. And you can't accept it.

As there is only a limited cast list for The Blue Dress I thought it was interesting that former husband and wife Virginia McKenna and Denholm Elliott make their only appearance together. From what I can remember- 30 years ago-this was an excellent version of a wonderful William Trevor short story. When the B.F.I or whoever get round to releasing his TV work this should be included.

I first saw William Trevor drama Mrs Ackland's Ghosts in 1975 when I was a teenager and I started to read his novels and stories. I also started to watch any of the adaptations of his work -Matilda's England is another forgotten classic with one of the last performances by Celia Johnson. William Trevor TV dramas always attracted the best actors who appeared in his work several times and The Blue Dress is no exception