Gentle readers, Recently I had the pleasure of watching Cold Comfort Farm, a film adaptation of the comic 1932 novel by Stella Gibbons. In 1995, Kate Beckinsale played the delightful Flora Poste, the girl who likes to organize things and tidy up. Kate also portrayed Emma Woodhouse at this time, before she turned Hollywood glam and began to play a vampire.
"I want to be a writer. I've so much in common with Jane Austen."
I find all of Cold Comfort Farm enchanting, but as a Jane Austen fan I naturally gravitated towards the conversation between Flora and her friend Mary Smiling (played by Joanna Lumley), who tells her young, recently orphaned friend that with an income of only 100 pounds per year she must find employment.
Mary Smiling's reaction to Flora's announcement is priceless.
Flora, who lived a life of luxury and was gently bred, counters with the thought that she would like to become a novelist much in the mold of Jane Austen. All she really needs is a few more years of observing life and she could write a novel as good as Persuasion. After accepting the invitation to live with distant relatives – the Starkadders who have always lived at Cold Comfort Farm – Flora begins to write her novel on the train.
"It was winter ...."
With ‘gems’ like these, do you think she will ever realize her dream of becoming the 20th century answer to Jane Austen?
“It was winter, the grimmest day of the darkest hour of the year…”
“The golden orb had almost disappeared behind the interlacing fingers of the hawthorne…”
Flora arrives at her destination immersed in her writing.
“The man’s huge body, rude as a wind-tortured thorn, was printed dark against the flame of sand that..that throbbed..that throbbed on the tip of …”
One of my favorite quotes from the film is by Ada Doom (Sheila Burrell), who’s often repeated phrase – “I saw something nasty in the woodshed” – casts a pall over the entire Starkadder clan and is the theme of the movie. Can you remember other pearls of wisdom from this fine film/novel?
Jane Austen's World 
Washing up brushes have been known as “clettering sticks” in our family for many years now.
I have never seen the film but I had to smile and then sympathize with her character’s attempts to write descriptive phrases.
I suffer the same fate often enough as I try to write Jane Austen fanfiction. In fact, I think I may have to pinch her description of the winter day! (with thanks given to the real author, of course)
This is one of my favorites too. Also because it has Rufus Sewell and a very young Rupert Penry Jones– who later played Captain Wentworth in the 2007 BBC Persuasion. :) such a great cast all around…the woodshed line is the only one that sticks (I haven’t seen the movie in a couple years). Thanks for the smile by reminding me of this fun movie. :)
A wind-tortured thorn??
Hah! Such a gem of, ehm, interesting writing. Think she is a front runner for the Bulwer-Lytton prize?
Gibbons was spoofing D.H.Lawremce; her contempoary readers would have gotten the joke and have had a goood laugh.
Lawrence’s work wouldn’t be very hard to spoof. All the same, she ran with it and made of her work such a cracking great gallop, didn’t she?
Nice post!
Rose
I love that in the novel’s introduction, the author mentions that she has marked phrases of particular literary merit with asterisks, for the convenience of future reviewers.
Ooh and the film producer’s reaction to meeting Ada Doom
‘I saw something nasty, in the woodshed.’
‘Sure dear, but did it see you?’
‘Tis prettier nor apple blooth, my little mop.’
Ooh and all the stuff with Mr Mybug. ‘Miss Poste, I’m engorgingly in love with you!’
The entire work’s just delicious. Superbly witty with a very sweet last two pages.
if you have not seen this film,you should.Flora’s attempts at writing a novel are funny as heck. Find out what was in the woodshed!
Ooh, you’re mean! I like it.
I absolutely adore this movie!!! I want to own a copy of it so whenever I am down she can cheer me up with her sunny disposition. Wonderful cast all around!
It is a superb film – one of those adaptations that enhances rather than subverts the original book. I agree with Reina that Rufus Sewell and Rupert Penry-Jones add significantly to its delights, although it has to be said that the casting is altogether excellent. Kate Bekinsale’s Emma is my favorite.
Hi all, thanks for stopping by and leaving your comments. I should have made it clearer that I was writing tongue-in-cheek when I described Flora’s writing as “gems.” “Nuggets of bad writing” is more like it.
One of my favorite lines is when Flora is introduced by the Starkadder family as Robert Poste’s child, as if she doesn’t have an identity of her own.
Other actors I love in this film are Eileen Atkins and Ian McKellen. It’s just a superb movie all around.
Ok, I have had this title dancing in my brain for the past 2 years but I didn’t realize there was a film of it. I’ll put that on my order list for Netflix to watch. Sounds like I’ve got some entertaining time to look forward to!
I love this movie, and I love the book.
For more writing of frighteningly florid felicity after the fashion of Flora (an otherwise excellent protagonist), may I suggest Amanda McKittrick Ros – the Inklings would have contests to see who could read her work aloud the longest without laughing! Some of her work is on gutenberg.org.
I don’t know how long it will be available, but at the moment the Christmas part of Cold Comfort Farm is available on BBC radio iPlayer — fun background to wrap presents by! Go to bbc.co.uk/iplayer and search for Cold Comfort…
(Nancy Mitford’s the Pursuit of Love and all sorts of other delights are also there for the listening. I LIVE for BBC Radio on the web)!
I love this movie! I need to read the novel now…
Oh yes! A wonderful adaptation and a real favourite of mine.
A great line I always remember is from the scene where Flora is telling the young farm girl about contraception. The girl says something about it not being natural and Flora’s response is ‘nature is all well and good but it must be allowed to become untidy.’ Beautiful.