I've seen this movie in the ORIGINAL WIDESCREEN VERSION with audiences as diverse as art house theaters, US Navy ships on deployment, and home viewing with friends, and even in the midst of sailors on 8 month deployments there was a genuine enjoyment of the plot and characters. What a shame the excellence has been completely gutted from the film by a horrible Pan and Scan adaptation. It is for such criminal efforts that whipping posts should be retained in public squares.
The movie is a period piece that is more like a Gosford Park with humor than a Pretty Woman as a Victorian costume drama. Handmade Films were ALWAYS films that "teemed with quiet fun", and this one is no exception.
However, when HALF THE SCREEN IS MISSING IT'S HARD TO APPRECIATE THE HUMOR! There's the irony of two men of the cloth talking about the soul building merit of sport, as they pass a bloody-faced 'sport' being hammered into a boxing ring turnbuckle, BUT that's all lost when you don't see the bloody-faced 'sport'. There's the maid in the house forever hovering like some dark force of unrequited passion, together with the swish-swish of her dress, BUT that's all lost when you RARELY see the maid, and you certainly don't see the expressions on her face when the action is allegedly on the other characters in the scene.
There's also the scene at the end that's been 'edited out' of recent releases of this film where the butler, Michael Hordern, ends up getting into bed with the divorced husband of the heroine of the film, Maggie Smith.
Finally, there's the absolutely ROUSING Music Hall finale, where half the screen is devoted to an obvious 'offspring' of Fortesque turning over a scrapbook that details the life of the main characters after the film ends. It's such a great scene that I've had people request to see just IT as a sort of finale to a night's worth of movie viewing.
IT'S THAT GOOD! Without these scenes and half-scenes, what was an excellent plot, full of irony and modern sympathies, is butchered.
To paraphrase Roy Batty from Bladerunner, "All those moments are lost in time, like tears in the rain" by a transfer to Pan and Scan.
If you can find a letterbox transfer of this movie, BUY IT if you enjoy the Handmade Films genre; if you like Time Bandits even though it isn't Jurassic Park.
Otherwise, the only thing to do is hope that some day, some way the 'long tail' theory of online video rental will provide it to people who can appreciate clever and interesting cinema.
The movie is a period piece that is more like a Gosford Park with humor than a Pretty Woman as a Victorian costume drama. Handmade Films were ALWAYS films that "teemed with quiet fun", and this one is no exception.
However, when HALF THE SCREEN IS MISSING IT'S HARD TO APPRECIATE THE HUMOR! There's the irony of two men of the cloth talking about the soul building merit of sport, as they pass a bloody-faced 'sport' being hammered into a boxing ring turnbuckle, BUT that's all lost when you don't see the bloody-faced 'sport'. There's the maid in the house forever hovering like some dark force of unrequited passion, together with the swish-swish of her dress, BUT that's all lost when you RARELY see the maid, and you certainly don't see the expressions on her face when the action is allegedly on the other characters in the scene.
There's also the scene at the end that's been 'edited out' of recent releases of this film where the butler, Michael Hordern, ends up getting into bed with the divorced husband of the heroine of the film, Maggie Smith.
Finally, there's the absolutely ROUSING Music Hall finale, where half the screen is devoted to an obvious 'offspring' of Fortesque turning over a scrapbook that details the life of the main characters after the film ends. It's such a great scene that I've had people request to see just IT as a sort of finale to a night's worth of movie viewing.
IT'S THAT GOOD! Without these scenes and half-scenes, what was an excellent plot, full of irony and modern sympathies, is butchered.
To paraphrase Roy Batty from Bladerunner, "All those moments are lost in time, like tears in the rain" by a transfer to Pan and Scan.
If you can find a letterbox transfer of this movie, BUY IT if you enjoy the Handmade Films genre; if you like Time Bandits even though it isn't Jurassic Park.
Otherwise, the only thing to do is hope that some day, some way the 'long tail' theory of online video rental will provide it to people who can appreciate clever and interesting cinema.