Martin Chuzzlewit

Starring:Lex Neale, Graham Rees, Janet Lees-Price, Peter Wingfield, Elizabeth Spriggs, Robin Hooper, Paul Scofield, Charlie Condou, Sam Kelly, Julia Sawalha, Steve Nicolson, Lynda Bellingham, Tom Wilkinson, John Padden, Cyril Shaps, Hannah Tollman, Pete Postlethwaite, Andrew Watson, Joan Sims, William Roberts (III)
Director: Pedr James
Studio: BBC Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

As can be clearly seen from the care lavished on these six BBC adaptions of Charles Dickens' novels, the British love their Dickens! And why not--Dickens is ideally suited to television, with his elaborate but vigorous plots, each a compendium of comically odious personalities (and one or two nice folk, just to keep things from getting too awful). Actors dig into these meaty roles with zeal, delighting in the hairpin turns from macabre horror to sweet sentiment. The more popular (and most frequently adapted) of the books at hand--Great Expectations and Oliver Twist--are the most conventional. The 1981 mini-series Expectations (in which young Pip learns the pitfalls of wealth through his relationship with the rich and bitter Mrs. Havishamand and her warped ward, Estella) is dutiful to its source but not adapted with much inspiration. Twist, from 1985, fares better; it's a zippy treatment of this tale of childhood deprivation and juvenile delinquency, and the horrors of Victorian orphanages will raise your hackles. The adaptation is capable but a little flat--still, any story where an undertaker observes, "Every tear is another shilling in the till," is clearly not lacking in wicked wit.

Fortunately, the others are considerably juicier: Martin Chuzzlewit, a lesser-known but richly satirical book, has a star-studded production from 1994, featuring Paul Scofield, Tom Wilkinson, Pete Postlethwaite, and Julia Sawalha, among others. The wealthy Martin Chuzzlewit, deeply suspicious of all mankind due to being hounded by greedy, grasping relatives, threatens the happiness of his ward Mary and his namesake grandson. In addition to the sterling and energetic cast, Chuzzlewit has outstanding production values, as does the 1998 version of Our Mutual Friend, which goes to great lengths to evoke the textures of life in Dickens' London. The mysterious death of a man about to inherit a great fortune sets in motion a complex plot that intertwines two love stories (it's one of Dickens' most romantic works), social scheming, and murderous obsession. The names aren't quite as famous (such as Paul McGann, Timothy Spall, Anna Friel, and Keeley Hawes), but the performances are top-notch and the script is particularly dynamic.

Bleak House, a Kafka-esque story of young innocents caught in an all-consuming, multi-generational lawsuit, cultivates a rich and potent Gothic horror; the 19th century seems like an unnerving alien world, through which lawyers and policemen stride like cruel predators. Diana Rigg is the most famous face in this 1985 production, but strong performances abound. The final component of this box set is the most curious: A 1994 version of Hard Times starring Alan Bates and Richard E. Grant, which turns this dark story--about a schoolmaster/politician who raises his children on reason at the expense of all feeling and finally reaps the bitter rewards--into a compact, theatrical feature film that's so swift it's almost jaunty. Adapted and directed by Peter Barnes (writer of The Ruling Class), it's the most stylized production of the bunch, and while lacking the depth and narrative detail of the others, it effectively cuts to the essence of Dickens. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Dickens Package 1.......2007-06-27

This collection is an embarassment of riches. Each story is divided into several episodes which take time to view and absorb. So far we have only viewed "Bleak House" and "Our Mutual Friend". Both are excellent and capture the steamy world of Dicken's London. I think I am constantly amazed at the attention to detail that the Brits recreate in historical drama. And of course there is the wealth of character playing for which Britain has always been famous. A really excellent series.

Dickensian Delights.......2007-06-02

This collection is wonderful, you can "watch" these novels over and over, faithful to Dickens in tone, plot and spirit -- Highly recommended.

opinion.......2007-06-02

I've just bought the collection, I've seen 3 movies so far, they're great, faithful to the books I've read. They come with cc(closed caption)so it helps the understanding. I watch a film and read the book. They're perfect for those who are really into literature. I highly recommend them.

lovely , region 1 only .......2007-05-08

The dark stories about the impossible lives of the unfortunate makes it a kind of films that will glue anyone to the chair. BBC serieses are not like any other film, and I simply escape to anothr world every time I watch.
Had to watch it in my computer though, since it was not my region( not even after I changed the region in my "region free" DVD player ) which also means I had no subtitles either. A good computer screen is needed for that purpose.

Good value.......2007-03-28

My husband and I are major fanatics when it comes to literary
pieces brought to film. We have been renting some of these classic BBC films from an online rental business. We finally decided to buy the set. My husband, being a english teacher, loved several of these films. The best two out of the set is Martin Chuzzlewit and Our Mutual Friend. It is a shame that Hard Times did not live up to the book and was only roughly based off of it. We just finished Oliver Twist, not knowing the story at all, we were on the of our seats just waiting to hear the big twist and to see how the plot works itself out. Highly recommended, even with Hard Times being not faithful to the book.

Average customer rating:

Very entertaining. No DVD closed captioning
I was surprised by how good this was
An adaptation the way it should be done!
The Bite of Real Dickens
Wonderfully adapted screenplay and a mesmerizing performance

Martin Chuzzlewit
Starring: Lex Neale , Graham Rees , Janet Lees-Price , Peter Wingfield , and Elizabeth Spriggs
Director: Pedr James
Manufacturer: BBC Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

Our Mutual Friend
Bleak House
Middlemarch
North & South
Bleak House

ASIN: B0009PVZL4
Release Date: 2005-09-06

Description

Martin Chuzzlewit is an old man with a large fortune and an even larger set of family and friends. A portrait of greed and selfishness, this magnificent adaptation of Dickens' comic masterpiece features an all-star cast.

Amazon.com

Greed, selfishness, and hypocrisy drive another rollicking story from Charles Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit features two Martin Chuzzlewits: An elderly and extremely wealthy one (the magnificent Paul Scofield, A Man for All Seasons), who loathes the sleazy, grasping relatives that hope to profit from his death; and his grandson (Ben Walden), a well-intentioned but self-absorbed young man who has fallen in love with his grandfather's ward, Mary Graham (Pauline Turner)--and because the elder Martin disapproves, the younger Martin has been disowned. In the gap between these two are a host of schemers, crooks, and even one or two good people--but at the center of it all is the pompous and oily Seth Pecksniff (Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), whose manipulations and lechery make him one of Dicken's most memorable villains. Whirling in his orbit are the goodhearted but ineffectual Tom Pinch (Philip Franks); the brutish Jonas Chuzzlewit (Keith Allen); Pecksniff's daughters, the "volatile hummingbird" Mercy (Julia Sawalha, Absolutely Fabulous) and the bitter, overlooked Charity (Emma Chambers, The Vicar of Dibley); and a host of other vivid Dickensian creations, all given juice and vitality by dozens of outstanding British actors, anchored by Scofield's magisterial presence. Because of his characters' outsized personalities and his plots' wild reversals of fortune, Dickens is ideally suited to dramatization, and Martin Chuzzlewit takes full advantage of his strengths. Lurid events like murder and blackmail contrast with rich psychological portraits, making Martin Chuzzlewit an opulent narrative feast. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Very entertaining. No DVD closed captioning.......2007-01-27

This was very well done. Kept a good pace, kept me captivated. Very entertaining story with some humor.

I did find it hard to follow the dialog with the various dialects of the characters, so I wanted to use subtitle. Alas! Subtitles are not enabled on DVDs in this series (BBC white covers). I switched from viewing the DVD via the component connection to viewing via the coax "VCR" connection. That allowed me to take advantage of the television's closed captioning capabilities. However, I had to sacrifice picture quality.

I was surprised by how good this was.......2007-01-09

I am surprised that this was never recommended to me! It also surprised me with how long it was, not a rushed 2 hour version but one that takes its time to develop the storyline and characters. Highly Recomended!

An adaptation the way it should be done!.......2007-01-03

I bought this as a Christmas gift for my Mother, but I hadn't realized how much I would also enjoy it. I saw this adaptation when it first came out and I was still a child, but seeing it again as an adult, I really can appreciate more of its humor and subtlety. Beyond this, since I read the original fairly recently, I can also say that it is very faithful to the book- in fact, the only problem that I had with any of it was that very little of the American scenes were included, and despite being an American myself, I thought that these were really one of the best parts of the book. However, the excellent performances (such as of Pecksniff, Jonas Chuzzlewit and Mr. Pinch) somewhat made up for this deficiency.

On the whole, I would say that this is an excellent adaptation and I highly recommend it.

The Bite of Real Dickens.......2006-09-21

In his commemorative book for the 1st 20 years of Masterpiece Theatre, Alistair Cooke commented that those who name "Great Expectaions" or "Tale of Two Cities" as their favorite Dickens novel are showing by their choice that they don't really care for Dickens. Often these more conventional, less eccentric novels are the ones most dramatized, and the public doesn't really get to know the crazy, dark, labrynthian world Dickens was capable of creating in his "big novels"--like "Old Curiosity Shop", "Little Dorrit", "Dombey & Son", "Our Mutual Friend", and "Martin Chuzzlewit". It takes patience to read them, and great patience to render them faithfully on screen. I think that this performance does a remarkably good job of bringing the novel to life.

I had read the book beforehand, so had an idea of how the dramatization SHOULD be done, and was surprised and pleased to see it succeed so well in many ways.

Pete Postlethwaite as Tigg Montague was (in my opinion) TRUE Dickens--eccentric in looks, manner, speech and not softened or blunted in any way. He conveyed the brash pungency of the character, as if an illustration by "Phiz" had come to life. Jonas Chuzzlewit is subtly depicted by Keith Allen.

**SPOILER FOLLOWS**

Oddly, this story reaches its excellent heights in death scenes. I think that's true in both novel and dramatizaton. The death of Anthony Chuzzlewit, a pivotal point in the novel, is almost frightening. And Jonas' suicide, short and sharp.

What characterizes Dickens is the interspersion of sharp, comic elements against dark social commentary. Sairy Gamp is wonderful, with her stuffed-up monologuing. I also liked Mary Graham, who was portrayed by Pauline Turner, not as an overtly beautiful girl, but as one with great sweetnes and warmth. One can easily understand people loving her, as everyone in the novel seems to do.

My ideal of Dickens dramatization was the long-ago Trevor Nunn production of Nicholas Nickleby, which starred Roger Rees. I always find it helpful in a review to know what the reviewer considers good, so this is my standard.

In any case, I'd highly recommend that you see this drama, if you appreciate what I'd call the "bite of Dickens".

Wonderfully adapted screenplay and a mesmerizing performance.......2006-09-16

I have seen many of the BBC Classic series, many are adaptations of novels by Charles Dickens. I have enjoyed them all, but none so much as this one. The adaptation is so wonderful enthralling and balanced, the drama sucks you in delicately and the acting is astonishingly fine. The details used to tell the story are creative and extremely well paced, you will want to watch all the episodes at once. I highly recommend not doing this, as the tantalizing effect of the drama only gets better as you have time between episodes to think about the details.

Charles Dickens' the Old Curiosity Shop (Complete 3 Hour TV Mini-series) / the Young Prisoners Handbook [2 DVD Set]

Average customer rating:

Charles Dickens' the Old Curiosity Shop (Complete 3 Hour TV Mini-series) / the Young Prisoners Handbook [2 DVD Set]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Miniseries | Television | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Mini-DVD | Formats | DVD | Video

Television | Mini-DVD | Formats | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000E5II8M

Product Description

digitally mastered / interactive menus / chapter selections

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