You won't be disappointed!

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Jane Austen's novel "Pride and Prejudice" was originally written in 1796/7 but not published until 1813. Most producers of television adaptations have been guided by the latter date and have set the story during the Regency period, although the 2005 film version was set in the 1790s. This film, however, shifts the action to the 1830s or 1840s, that is to say 20 or 30 years after Austen's death. Two explanations have been given for this change. The official one is that the studio, MGM, wished to use more flamboyant costumes than the relatively restrained and simple ones of the Regency era. The other is that MGM had recently made another film set during the early Victorian period and wanted to re-use the sets and costumes. The film was originally intended to be in colour, to which it would have been well suited, but ended up being made in black-and-white because "Gone with the Wind" had used up all MGM's stocks of colour film.I will not say much about the plot because it is so well-known. The film does, however, differ from the novel in a number of ways. Most of these are fairly minor; whenever a novel is adapted for the screen some scenes will inevitably need to be shortened or omitted altogether if the film is not to become intolerably long-winded. In the novel the insufferable Mr. Collins was a clergyman, here he becomes a librarian, a change driven by the Production Code which forbade unsympathetic portrayals of the clergy. (This piece of censorship would have disappointed the devoutly Christian Austen, who was using Collins to satirise those who entered the priesthood out of mercenary, self-seeking motives rather than genuine religious feelings). The film ends with all five Bennet sisters married or about to be married, unlike the book which ends with only Jane, Elizabeth and Lydia married or engaged.Perhaps the most significant change is that made to the character of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, in the novel a monstrous old snob and hypocrite but whose personality is here considerably softened, again blunting Austen's satire. She is still a formidable old lady, but is actually sympathetic towards Elizabeth's proposed marriage to Darcy, something which in the book she does her damnedest to prevent.The film was made in the United States by an American studio, but in the thirties Hollywood was generally respectful towards the British classics so Austen's English setting is kept. (This would not be something we could take for granted today; when Alfonso Cuaron made a film of Dickens's "Great Expectations" he not only switched the action to America but also gave it a contemporary setting). This meant that the cast, most of whom were American themselves, had to put on their best English accents, and most cope well with the challenge, although one or two occasionally slip.Laurence Olivier, who here plays the proud Mr. Darcy, had the previous year acted in another adaptation of a nineteenth-century classic, "Wuthering Heights". Superficially Heathcliff and Darcy are quite different characters, but both are passionate men, the difference being that in Darcy's case his passion is constrained beneath a formal exterior of manners and breeding. With Olivier's performance one always senses the strong emotions hidden beneath his immaculately starched shirt. With all due respect to admirers of Colin Firth's interpretation, and of Matthew MacFadyen's (if he has any), Sir Laurence is still for me the greatest Mr. Darcy.As for Greer Garson as the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet, she is fine if one can overlook the fact that at 36 she is considerably older than the character imagined by Jane Austen (21 in the book). In the early nineteenth century young women were regarded as being well on the way to becoming an old maid if they were still unmarried in their late twenties, like Charlotte Lucas here or Anne Elliott in "Persuasion". Austen would have been very surprised had she known that in the twentieth century her heroines would be played by actresses in their late thirties. The original choice for Elizabeth was Norma Shearer, two years older even than Garson. Emma Thomson was a similar age when she played Elinor in "Sense and Sensibility", but that seems to matter less as the ultra-sensible Elinor is very much an old head on young shoulders. Nevertheless, Garson brings out well Elizabeth's determination and sense of self-respect; we sense that she and Darcy are a fine match for one another.Maureen O'Sullivan makes a sweet and lovable Jane, even if she is one of those who occasionally let their accents slip. (O'Sullivan is best remembered today for playing another Jane, in the "Tarzan" films). I also liked Edmund Gwenn as Mr. Bennet; the contribution I liked least came from Edna May Oliver as Lady Catherine, although the fault may lie less with the actress than with the changes made by the scriptwriter.Now that Jane Austen is so firmly established as good box office, it is strange to think that this "Pride and Prejudice" was the first feature film to be based on her work. Stranger still that it remained the only one until the nineties. It is very different from a modern "heritage cinema" adaptation, but as an example of a 1940s romantic comedy it is an excellent one, keeping a lot of Austen's wit and powers of characterisation. 9/10A goof. We see carriages driving on the right-hand side of the road, but we Brits drive on the left, and did so even in the horse-and-carriage days of the nineteenth century.

This is a fun comedy and drama about the Bennets and how they have to marry off their daughters to suitable males from wealthy society that may bring them happiness. From the get go Mrs Bennet is hunting suitable admirers from the landed gentry.The film is an adaptation of the stage play and condenses the Jane Austen novel as well as moving it forward to the Victorian era.Mr Bennet is played by Edmund Gwenn who is more knowing and wants his daughters to marry for love rather than status.The central plot is that of Elizabeth Bennet (Greer Garson) and Mr Darcy (Laurence Oliver.) Darcy is haughty, wealthy and proud. Elizabeth is a proto feminist, more intelligent and prejudiced in her views of Darcy but develops feelings for him.Even though the plot is shortened the machinations of the various love tangles does begin to drag before the film neatly concludes. Good performances from Olivier and Garson as the main suitors who fall each other.

What's a social climbing mother to do when she has all girls, none of them eligible to inherit a family fortune? Find them all rich husbands, that's what! The problem is that once an eligible rich bachelor (Laurence Olivier) moves into their pretty ritzy neighborhood, all of the other mothers are out to do the same thing. Elizabeth (Greer Garson) is perhaps the best catch of the five daughters, and when she catches the eye of handsome Mr. Darcy, a misunderstanding threatens to keep them apart. She overheard what she felt was a slight against the middle class girls ogling him, and when he asks her for a dance, she politely declines. But there's lots of stars to cross in this period romantic comedy of manners (based upon Jane Austen's most famous novel) and the clever Olivier has a few tricks up his sleeve.When your mother or husband is Mary Boland, there's lots of unintentional henpecking going on. Just that voice alone gives the impression of imperiousness as she talks and talks. Moving from the train to Reno (in "The Women") to the English countryside, she is a determined mother, and with daughters that besides Garson include Anne Rutherford, Maureen O'Sullivan, Heather Angel and Marsha Hunt, she has her hands full. Papa Edmund Gwenn (pre-Santa Claus) makes one thing clear to Garson when mama insists she'll never speak to her again if she refuses to marry their wealthy distant relative (Melville Cooper): He'll never speak to her again if she does!The opulent costumes of the period and witty dialog of the classy kind make this an enjoyable romp into "Downton Abbey" territory. And when Edna May Oliver makes her entrance as Olivier's imperious "great lady" aunt, it's as if Maggie Smith's Lady Violet from that smash PBS/BBC series has taken a step back in time into corsets and bloomers rather than her early 20th Century matriarch. Even in her long two scenes, Oliver is guilty of theft: she steals every moment she is on screen. This is classic movie magic at its best and an absolute must.

The 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice is what I think of as a typical MGM movie of the Golden Age. Of course, MGM made many other types of picture, but they were particularly associated with this kind of 'prestige' movie. It is a big, expensive production, based on a world famous book, written by an eminent literary figure (Aldous Huxley), with lavish sets and sumptuous costumes, starring their most prestigious English actors. In other words: portentous, showy and completely empty.This movie is all packaging and no content.It goes without saying that it is a travesty of the book, but it is hopeless even as a simple exercise in story-telling. It would be easy to deplore it for its technical incompetence, its wild historical inaccuracy and its somewhat trashy notion of elegance and sophistication, but I suspect that would be missing the point.In 1939, when this movie was being planned, America was still mired in the Great Depression and there were millions of women who had been struggling to make ends meet for the best part of a decade. What they wanted from MGM was to be transported out of the grim reality of their own lives into a fantasy world of opulence and ease; of glamour, luxury and elegance. That is what movies like Pride and Prejudice were designed to do. I can complain that the plot is, at best, perfunctory, but who cared? The story was almost incidental to its core audience. It was the over-the-top costumes, the soaring sets, the glittering chandeliers and the gleaming carriages that the audience really wanted to see.The packaging was the point!For example, the costumes are absurd – they are not only wrong for that period, they are probably wrong for any period. However, I am sure the MGM costume department could have designed gowns that were authentic down to the last button, if that was what MGM had wanted – but they didn't. And who am I to say that they were wrong? MGM was the only Hollywood studio that went right through the Great Depression without ever making a loss. They must have been doing something right.When I view this movie today, I know I must try to understand why it was made the way it was. This vision of Regency England may have been very naïve and very fanciful, but there is no reason to suppose that the people that made the movie were naïve: or even that the people in the audience were. I know I have to put myself into the position of that audience if I am to enjoy it in the way that was originally intended, but I cannot do that. I have to judge the movie on the basis of how it looks today, in the context of other movies of the era, not how it might have looked then.From that perspective, it has not lasted well. Nor, I suspect, have MGM movies as a whole. From the very beginning of the Thirties, Hollywood churned out scores and scores and scores of movies that are still highly watchable today. You don't have to be a movie buff or film historian to enjoy Universal horror films, Warner Brothers gangster movies, RKO musicals, Disney animations or the Westerns, 'screwball' comedies, romances, melodramas, thrillers, historical pictures and other movies that flooded out of Hollywood at that time. Until the last twenty years or so they were part of everyone's film education.MGM was the biggest and most successful studio of the Thirties, but my gut feel is that fewer of their movies have stood the test of time than those of most of their competitors. Too many look like Pride and Prejudice: frothy, over-stuffed, over-egged but ultimately unsatisfying: timely but not timeless.This movie is of undoubted historical interest as a representative artifact of Hollywood at a particular time in its history, but from any other perspective it is utterly negligible.