First glimpse of Bingley and Darcy
Turner Movie Classics offers a website with trailers and featurettes about its films. Click on this link to hear Ann Rutherford speak in two featurettes about the making of Pride and Prejudice 1940.
Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy
Of his part as Mr. Darcy, Laurence Olivier said in his autobiography: “I was very unhappy with the picture. It was difficult to make Darcy into anything more than an unattractive-looking prig, and darling Greer seemed to me all wrong as Elizabeth.”
If I may put in my two cents, I agree heartily with Mr. Olivier’s assessment. Considered a classic in the 20th century, the film now seems anachronistic and outdated. Except for a few excellent portrayals, (Mary Boland as Mrs. Bennet, Edna May Oliver as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Edmund Gwenn as Mr. Bennet, Marsha Hunt as Mary Bennet, and Melville Cooper as Mr. Collins) I would not bother to see the film again.
Lizzy at the window looking like a matron in Little Women
From the notes on the TMC website: “M-G-M took several liberties with Jane Austen’s novel, among them moving the time period of the story forty years ahead. According to modern sources, this was done in order to allow for more ornate costumes.” Anne Rutherford said in a JASNA interview: “But I must say, that when the studio, in its infinite wisdom, when they changed the wardrobe from the wet-nightgown look, that empire look, to the ship-in-full-sail [Victorian] – they did such a wise thing. Because the sight of Mary Boland [Mrs. Bennet] bustling down the street with all of her little goslings behind her in their huge voluminous skirts, and all of them chattering at once – it wouldn’t have been nearly as delightful a sight-gag if we had all been in little, skinny wet-night-gown-type things.”
Again, I beg to differ. Notice the delightful picture these actresses in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice adaptation make in their regency gowns:
Bennet women 2005 Pride and Prejudice
- Over view of Pride and Prejudice, 1940 on TMC website. Images from that site.
- The film’s movie posters on Jane Austen Today
Jane Austen's World 
I wonder if the movie was trying to bank on the popularity of “Gone with the Wind”, which came out the year before. The costumes were a big focal point in that film, and they probably wanted to draw on that to bring in audiences. Just a theory. Times change, tastes change. Modern audiences love seeing the simpler, freer styles of the Regency era rather than the restrictive and overbearing styles of the Antebellum/Civil War period.
Sara, I think you are correct. Also, Ann Rutherford tells that the decision to use costumes of another age was a deliberate decision.
Thanks for pointing these featurettes out. They were fascinating – I want more!
I love Lawrence Olivier as an actor, but I really don’t like this version of P&P. I agree that Greer is all wrong as Elizabeth and the costumes are terrible. I also can’t get over the coach race at the beginning to find the new men in town. AHH!
Laura, I had forgotten about the coach race! Yes! I own a DVD version of the film and each time I start it I cannot finish viewing it because of these helpful “touches.”
Larry was just miffed because Greer–his protege, and some allege, a former lover–was a big star in the U.S. and he, despite his smashing success in 1939’s Wuthering Heights, wasn’t even as famous as Vivien Leigh. Plus, I think he wanted Vivien as Lizzie, just as Vivien wanted Larry in everything she did as well (the two were rather obsessed with one another). However much the movie deviated from the book, I am a huge Greer Garson fan and found this MGM version full of verve and wit. I also didn’t mind the costumes as I cringe whenever historical romances are set in the 1820/30s, as though it’s still the Regency era with its slim silhouette, instead of the explosion of ribbons and furbelows it was. Nice to see that the costume designer wasn’t afraid to show off the fashions of that decade.
We have largely forgotten that Olivier’s and Leigh’s love affair was a scandal that studio head Louis B. Mayer wanted to hush up, and thus he nixed Vivien’s participation in the film, even though she had asked George Cukor to speak on her behalf.
I love Greer Garson in almost everything movie I’ve watched her in except this one. At the time the film was made she was 36 years old. Her lighthearted comedic touch would have been better suited to Mrs. Bennet, but I suppose that at that stage of her career, she would play nothing but leading lady parts. Mary Boland, though a delight to watch as Mrs. Bennet, was close to 60 when she portrayed a middle aged woman. I know that there had been a long tradition of older actresses taking on the roles of teenagers, but this was for the stage. (Thankfully, men no longer portrayed women!) On film, where every line and wrinkle is heightened, the tradition of using actors who are much older than the characters they portray seems especially ludicrous. I could barely stand Joe Wright’s version of 2005’s P&P, but one thing he did get right was the ages of the actresses who portrayed the Bennet girls. He then fell down miserably with the Bennet parents, hiring 70-year-old Donald Sutherland and 59-year-old Brenda Blethyn to portray the characters.
I can tolerate many deviations from the original novel for the “sake of the film”, but Robert Z. Leonard, the director, took too many unnecessary liberties, from the opening scene in which the Bennet women find out about Mr. Bingley’s arrival in a haberdashery shop in Meryton, to that ghastly ending, where Edna Mae Oliver as Lady Catherine waits in her carriage to learn from Darcy if he proposed to Elizabeth. As for Olivier, it is very obvious that his heart was not in the film. Had it not been for Greer Garson’s lighthearted banter, I fear he might have fallen asleep in front of the camera.
As an aside, I wonder if Aldous Huxley, one of the script writers, was an admirer of Jane Austen, or one of her detractors? I did find this quote from an article about the film in a 1986 article in JASNA’s Persuasions: “Huxley worked manfully at the script, but never seemed to be delighted with the task. In a letter to a friend he called it “an odd, crossword puzzle job. One tries to do one’s best for Jane Austen, but actually the very fact of transforming the book into a picture must necessarily alter its whole quality in a profound way.”
Oh, I’m aware that Vivien and Larry’s scandal needed to be patched up, but having seen him in a few romantic comedies, it wasn’t his strong suit. His somnambulist performance, IMO, was less because Darcy was a prig and more because he was probably doing this for the paycheck and the star appeal.
Regarding Greer’s age, yes at 36 she did look ludicrous play 20 yr old Lizzie Bennett, but MGM was attempting to pass her off as younger than she was since they had kicked her around without any of the starring roles they’d promised her when she came to the US four or five years previous. P&P was part of their apology to her–and since she was so obviously British, what else to do than to cast her in penultimately English roles like this?
But as for the ages of other actors and other versions, I do like that Wright cast actresses matching the ages of the characters, by Brenda and Donald looked good together and look alarmingly good for their ages. Back to P&P ’40, this book admits that the studio changed the movie’s setting to hearken back to the successes with GWTTW and Wuthering Heights, but I’d also argue that the movie was a film adaptation of a play adaptation of the book. I’d like to get my hands on a copy of the stageplay to compare it to the movie.
Oh I couldn’t agree more! I remember seeing this vintage film about a year ago and was sooooo disappointed in it.. thinking to myself… did the studio even read the book? Laurence as Mr. Darcy? Yawn~ ha ha No wonder the BBC version was and still is the BEST movie version!
I didn’t know all that background info on the romance though. hmmm A bit saucy for its time! lol
Thanks for the link! I think this film is light fun – actually, I think it shares of lot of things with the 2005 film, and that that film will similarly probably not age as well. But that’s just my opinion. And I love behind the scenes stuff – I just wish they put them on a nice 70th anniversary dvd or somesuch.
Having done a brief presentation at JASNA in 2000 about the (then) 3 P&P versions, I find it curious that TMC now posts info on their website about this version of P&P including these featurettes, when at the time they refused to give my family and I copyright permission to show a ‘clip’ at our presentation. Can you say, “Jane Austen Bandwagon?”
This version is such a hoot! Love Olivier and Garson, but at D & E, they just don’t seem to be able to make it work. And the ball that is more like a lawn party? Again, it’s painful, but fun! (Thanks for the insight about Gone with the Wind-likeness. I’d forgotten that it was just after it!)
I think the movie is pretty fun to watch. As someone once told me, if we weren’t all put out regarding the liberties they took with P&P, we could like it a lot more. It is a fun movie, it’s just not P&P.
Edna Mae Oliver is descendant of John Quincy Adams. Therefore, Priscilla Mullens in the cartoon is modelled after Edna May Oliver! Ironically, Oliver is a descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullens!
Late to the party but have to add…. I read in a book about historical costumes in Hollywood movies that it was Adrian’s idea to switch from Empire to Victorian costumes. He was the one who didn’t think Empire fashions attractive enough.
IMO, it’s a pity that Vivien didn’t get to play Lizzie (she would also have played a wonderful Cathy to Olivier’s Heathcliff!).
The hairstyles are especially ludicrous. Only Mary had something similar to 19th century fashions – sausage curls. But the “more attractive” actresses were given what the book calls “Hollywood beauty queen wigs”.
Love your blog!!!
If I may put in my two cents, I agree heartily with Mr. Olivier’s assessment. Considered a classic in the 20th century, the film now seems anachronistic and outdated. Except for a few excellent portrayals, (Mary Boland as Mrs. Bennet, Edna May Oliver as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Edmund Gwenn as Mr. Bennet, Marsha Hunt as Mary Bennet, and Melville Cooper as Mr. Collins) I would not bother to see the film again.
I get the feeling that the main problem many have with this version of “P&P” was that it was set 20 years later, during the 1830s. I’m sorry, but I find this kind of limited thinking a little ridiculous.
There is no law that “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE” always have to be set during the Regency Period. There is a version of this story set in modern day India. And also, it’s plot is not limited to the historical background of the Regency Era.
Personally, I plan to buy the 1940 version as soon as I can get my hands on a DVD copy.
And I get sick and tired of people claiming that film adaptations have to be an exact replica or near replica of its literary source. That also strikes me as a sign of limited thinking.
Rosie, Aside from the civil war era costumes (half a century later), my main beef with this adaptation is the change in the ending in which Lady Catherine de Bourgh conspires to bring Elizabeth and Darcy together. That goes against everything that the original plot stands for. BTW, I own both the VHS and DVD copies and have seen the film numerous times. But is it a P&P classic? No. A Hollywood classic? Yes.
Oh, and I love Emma Thompson’s script for Sense and Sensibility, which altered Jane Austen’s dialog and added scenes that Jane Austen had not written. But she stuck to the spirit of the novel and plot, and kept the time period true.
I stand behind my opinion that the 1940 adaptation of P&P is outdated and ridiculous. There are fine comic moments, but they do not a Jane Austen adaptation make.
The Bollywood version had the wit not to call itself P&P, but Bride and Prejudice. It is a wonderful film. Clueless, based on Emma, also felt free to change the plot to meet modern sensibilities. I absolutely adore that film as well.
If a film maker wants to twist Austen to the point that it is no longer the author’s vision, he/she should have the grace to retitle the film. P&P 1940 was based on the Helen Jerome script, written for the stage, and Aldous Huxley also had his hand in writing the script. He said, “One must do the best for Jane Austen.” If that is the case, the studio did the film a great disservice turning Darcy into a wuss and changing the dynamics between him and Lady Catherine.
Of his part as Mr. Darcy, Laurence Olivier said in his autobiography: ”I was very unhappy with the picture. It was difficult to make Darcy into anything more than an unattractive-looking prig, and darling Greer seemed to me all wrong as Elizabeth.”
If I may put in my two cents, I agree heartily with Mr. Olivier’s assessment. Considered a classic in the 20th century, the film now seems anachronistic and outdated.
I don’t. I disagree with Mr. Olivier most heartily. I would have never been aware of Austen’s story if it were not for this version of P&P. So what if it wasn’t an accurate adaptation of the story? There isn’t a single adaptation of P&P I have seen that was completely faithful to the novel – and that includes the 1940, 1980, 1995, 2004 and 2005 versions. All of them have taken liberties with the story. For some reason, the 1940 version is singled out, because the costume designer, Adrian, had the cast dressed in 1830s fashion, instead of from the Regency era . . . and Lady Catherine de Bourgh was shown to be supportive of Darcy’s marriage to Elizabeth at the end.
Big deal. Olivier is not the foremost authority of what is an entertaining adaptation and what isn’t. At least not in my book.
I stand behind my opinion that the 1940 adaptation of P&P is outdated and ridiculous. There are fine comic moments, but they do not a Jane Austen adaptation make.
The Bollywood version had the wit not to call itself P&P, but Bride and Prejudice. It is a wonderful film. Clueless, based on Emma, also felt free to change the plot to meet modern sensibilities. I absolutely adore that film as well.
I don’t understand this. You give movies like “BRIDE AND BOLLYWOOD” and “CLUELESS” for being modern takes on “P&P” and “EMMA”; yet the 1940 “P&P” is outdated and not considered a Jane Austen adaptation because its producer didn’t change the title?
Rosie, Aside from the civil war era costumes (half a century later), my main beef with this adaptation is the change in the ending in which Lady Catherine de Bourgh conspires to bring Elizabeth and Darcy together. That goes against everything that the original plot stands for. BTW, I own both the VHS and DVD copies and have seen the film numerous times. But is it a P&P classic? No. A Hollywood classic? Yes.
The 1940 version is set during the 1830s, 30 years before the American Civil War and the costumes reflect that. Which means the movie was set at least 35 to 40 years after the novel was first written and 20 years after it was first published. Knowing all that, I guess I don’t care if the movie was not set during the 1810s.
I’ve seen five versions of “P&P” – 1940, 1980, 1995, 2004 and 2005 – and all of them took liberties with Austen’s novel. To me, the 1940 version is both a “P&P” and Hollywood classic.
I agree, the 1940’s version lacks the true Austen spirit, charm, and insight many of us have come love.
Sandy
@Rosie: The points of arguments you have here are completely moot since they are your opinions which by all accounts are respected here but you are VERY wrong. Your insistence that the 1940 P&P is an adaptation stems from being misinformed. As a screenplay writer I can tell you that adapting a 300 page novel into a 100 page screenplay is a daunting task but you have to stick to the novel like velcro. You can’t take artistic liberties with someone else’ work , and then proceed to pronounce it as an adaptation of the novel when it truth what it will be is just an ‘interpretation’.
An adapted screenplay looks to capture the essence and spirit of the story. Determine the through-line and major sub-plot of the story and viciously cut parts deemed unnecessary. You can’t change the beginning, middle or ending because the story is not yours to change. I hope this clears things up for you.
It’s sad that this discussion has devolved into an argument and that two people felt authorized to resort to ad hominems. I don’t think “winning” the argument is important enough to resort to accusations of ignorance or mischaracterizing what the other person said.
At least someone knew to blame the fashions on Adrian. Yes, the dress styles being 20 years wrong is blasphemy. But did you happen to notice any of the other horrible failures in the recent Austen covers? Women’s hair limp and lifeless and looking like the 1960’s, never having seen a curling iron, curling paper, or a hair pin? A fashionable woman of 1810 would have had her hair clustered in a million little curls around her face, the back of her hair piled up in some absurd knot or ugly pile of hair. How much were you disturbed by the inappropriate cut of their dresses, usually in monotone, usually without fringe, lace, tucks, or pleats. Their undergarments were also dreadful, and pretty much came from the Macy’s lingerie department and not from a seamstress’s needle.
How about the men? Very few of the men in these movies could be said to have had Regency haircuts. In “Persuasion” English men had even lost a four-thousand year old tool called “the straight razor”–no one could remember how to shave and get it smooth!
Rooms were often dark as if the hosts couldn’t afford candles or lamps. Wallpaper dirty and stained as if the owners of the house didn’t think anyone would mind. Unmarried women and men kissing, something that didn’t happen until after the priest said, “You may now kiss the bride.” These anachronisms should have bothered you a lot more than fluffy dresses did.
I wonder how many of you read the book first, and how many saw one of the movies first? I think of Austen as lively, playful, arch, wry, sarcastic, and sly in her humor. Once I read “A History of England” aloud to a roomful of men who didn’t know who the author was, and the consensus was that it must have been Mark Twain. That guy knew satire, and so did Austen. When I watch the recent movies and the TV adaptations, I see only frigid, unsmiling women gliding around in satin slippers doing their best not to lose the book they’re wearing on top of their heads, but I’m not sure how many of you would get that reference.
Were you bothered by the ill-designed, often monotone dresses with no fringe, few ruffles, little lace? How about how utterly inappropriate their undergarment are? Yes, that shows in the way the dress hangs. I consider all this to be as blasphemous as the 1830’s styles dresses Adrian dressed his movie in. At least in that production, the women had the appropriate godawful hairstyles, Lydia guffawed like the unbridled horse’s hind end she was, and Mr Bennet (Edmund Gwen) was always making fun of everyone and not letting them know what was going on. Elizabeth was arch, just as she should have been. Some of her teasing was directed at Mr Darcy (“Ohh, and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball room,”) and some of it at Miss Bingley, but always with a clever smile and one raised eyebrow, exactly as I would picture Elizabeth Bennet doing. In the modern versions you get a sedate, reserved, “hold your pinky in the air when you drink your tea” sort of delivery, but to me it’s lifeless and devoid of the Mark-Twain-sarcasm that I mentioned above.
Years ago I lent a paperback version of P&P to a friend. She came back after a week and told me how “charming” this little drawing-room book was, with all the ladies sitting around drinking tea and being on their best behavior in their little pink dresses. She was very patronizing. I blushed for her and told her, “You’re reading it with the wrong tone in mind. It’s not a list of good drawing-room manners, it’s a satire, it makes fun of bad types of people, like the ignorant, the social climbers, the lazy.” My friend went away and read some more, but came back and literally threw the book at me. “That bitch!” she yelled. “Always sneering and making fun of everyone!” She realized she had failed to pick up on the obvious tone and was triply angry because of it. From then on out I have been careful to advise my borrower-friends about playfulness, satire, and sarcasm.
I believe you who have claimed the newer versions of P&P “catch the spirit” of the book have utterly missed both the sarcasm and the playfulness in the text and, like the directors of the newer versions, take them for Victorian drawing-room romances. There is certainly no liveliness in the new movies. The only fun to be found resides in the 1940 version. Yes, it’s a shame they played with Lady Catherine and made her likable. Greer Garson is redheaded and mature and not brunette and twenty. It’s also a pity so much else had to be cut to make the movie fit into “only” 117 minutes.
But I willingly give up the costumes and a lot of other inessential trimmings and happily welcome the playfulness, the sarcasm, the satire, and yes, the spirit of this book the way I happen to think Austen intended it to be read.
Oh, and the ball at Netherfield took place in the daytime, and both the host and his guests would exploit the grounds to expand their opportunities for amusement. See “Vanity Fair” for a comparison.
Thank you all for stopping by, for I do value readers’ opinions, including those that differ from mine. I must admit that after two years of having studied Regency costumes rather closely, the period dress in the 1940 film is indeed dated around the 1830s. However, my personal opinions about this film have not changed. The more I see it, the less I like Darcy and Elizabeth. It’s only my opinion, and obviously it is not shared by everyone.
I will state, however, that the Netherfield Ball lasted well into the evening, a word Jane Austen used to describe the time of day in Chapter 18 of Volume 1. “The rest of the evening brought her little amusement. She was teazed by Mr. Collins, who continued most perseveringly by her side…” The Bennet family outstayed their welcome. One of the few scenes I liked in the 2005 P&P version was the one in which Jane Bennet was sandwiched between her two sleeping sisters in the carriage as it left Netherfield close to dawn. I found the 2005 P&P problematic as well, for that marriage scene ending (Mr. Darcy…Mrs. Darcy…Mr. Darcy..Mrs Darcy) was as distasteful as the altered ending in the 1940s P&P. My favorite of the P&P adaptations? It’s a tossup between the 1980 BBC version and the classic A&E adaptation from 1995.
As for the costumes, each time period sees the past through the lenses of their own time. I daresay that no matter how hard costumers try to be historically accurate, they are not. Else, why are the 30’s Regency gowns so different from the 50’s Regency gowns, 80’s Regency gowns, etc? My image of the 2005 P&P costumes was merely to demonstrate that highwaisted empire gowns can be dramatic and lovely. (I am thinking in particular of Northanger Abbey, 1987, which uses the round gowns so popular at the end of the 18th century to great effect, but still manages to retain the sartorial preferences for 80’s big hair and big pouffy shoulders.)
Again, my opinion. My preference. Many of you will disagree.
If film makers want to make original stories, then they should let their screenwriters do the writing. Purloining a beloved classic and altering the storyline beyond the author’s intention simply because visual media demands a different pacing and treatment? Piffle. My advice to film makers is this: go write your own story.
One thing that Aldous Huxley did get right (as did Emma Thompson for Sense and Sensibility) is Jane Austen’s humor and acerbic wit. I dare say that most of the readers attracted to this blog have read Jane’s novels as many times as I have and that one of the reasons we are drawn back to her words again and again is that such a fine mind and talent as hers cannot be ignored.
I wonder what Jane would have thought about the comments on this post. She’d have a good laugh, no doubt, and write down her observations.
Really, you all astonish me! The term “dramatic license” accounts for nearly everything any of those commenting here find so disgusting in any of the film and television adaptations.
The huge, intrusive costumes are amongst my least favorite aspects of the 1940 film. Furthermore, Lady Catherine’s shift from overbearing dragon to benevolent enabler does go completely against the novel’s characterization, but so what?
A 1950s or 1960s television broadcast of that film gave me my introduction to Jane Austen, and inspired me to read her novels for myself — something other film adaptations of famous books have done as well, to my lastingly grateful enrichment. Even now I willingly suspend my disbelief in Greer Garson as a twenty-year-old, because, apparently unlike so many viewers, I find her performance charming and witty. She was a very talented actress who could portray a wide variety of characters quite convincingly.
More recent adaptations have differing points of view, and more or less authentic costumes. All of them are more or less agreeable to my way of thinking, but really if one wants nothing but the author’s original version I can only say: Read the Book.
I argued against many elements in the film that simply did not make sense both historically and from the characters’ POV. Knowing the history of the novel, knowing how the Marriage Mart of the early 19th century worked, knowing that women who were the age of Greer Garson (mid-30s) were considered to be “on the shelf”, mothers, matrons, or spinsters, I (in my own blog – not yours) felt free to hold forth my opinions.
Greer Garson’s performance would certainly have been charming had she portrayed a woman of a certain age who found love after having given up any chance of marriage in an age when women married in their teens and were considered old maids at the age of 27. Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s unbelievable turn-around and support of Darcy’s quest to win over Elizabeth Bennet was such an egregious change of Jane Austen’s intentions that no self-respecting lover of the author’s witty original novel can find this alteration acceptable.
Sorry, I don’t care how beautifully written Aldous Huxley’s adaptation is, his is a version of Helen Jerome’s play, not of Jane Austen’s iconic novel.
More recent film adaptations are neither here nor there, although I prefer the 6-hour 1995 A&E adapatation of P&P for its faithful portrayal of Elizabeth and Darcy. As for your comment: “Furthermore, Lady Catherine’s shift from overbearing dragon to benevolent enabler does go completely against the novel’s characterization, but so what?”
But so what? That scene alone demonstrated Lizzy’s willful independence in an era when women had no rights; her feistiness against a woman who was perceived to hold all the economic and social power; her belief in love over a marriage of convenience; and the tremendous change she had undergone in reconsidering Darcy’s character after her first impression. “But so what,” indeed.
Pride and Prejudice 1940 movie version is a nice little visual tale that will eventually become a Hollywood footnote. Pride and Prejudice 1813 as written by Jane Austen is a classic that will outlast anything that put out by the film industry.
If dramatic adaptations offend you, please save yourself the pain and outrage. I say again: Read the Book.
I have. At least once per year for a decade. And I love the P&P 95 film adaptation, which takes some liberties but does not Hollywoodize this Regency classic.
I do believe that on my blog I can express my own opinion. Feel free to disagree, but allow me the courtesy of having my own thoughts about this production, which are simply 180 degrees from yours.