Emma (1972 TV Mini-Series)

★★★½

This mini-series, made in 1972, had the same production quality as other BBC mini-series made in the 1980s. I'm glad I decided to go back and watch all screen adaptations, regardless of their year of release. (Originally I planned only to watch screen adaptations made no earlier than 1980.)

While Mrs. Weston seemed a bit young for her role, several other characters were very well-cast. Specifically, I really enjoyed Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Knightley, Harriet Smith, Mrs. Elton, and Frank Churchill. I rather think Frank Churchill's cheery and relaxed demeanor stole every scene he was in, especially since the production as a whole was kind of serious and slow. In both the mini-series and the book, everyone good-naturedly humored Mr. Woodhouse's fretting, but in the mini-series, unfortunately, people seemed to lose patience with him, and many scenes ended by having someone walk out on Mr. Woodhouse while he was in mid-sentence! Poor Mr. Woodhouse.

This production might have gotten four stars, but I subtracted half a star specifically because it altered the Box Hill picnic scene too much. I can live with some of the liberties a screen adaptation is bound to take - condensing several scenes into one, moving a conversation from one scene to another, or introducing some character in a more abbreviated way - but by leaving Mr. Elton and Jane Fairfax out of the picnic altogether, the scene lost quite a bit of its significance. In the book, the fact that Frank and Emma's flirtations took place in Jane's presence gave the entire scene more meaning, and Jane finally broke her reservedness by responding - with her longest speech in the book - to observations of Mr. and Mrs. Elton's quick marriage. Those parts of the picnic scene are so central to the Jane and Frank storyline that I just can't forgive this production for leaving it out - especially since, as a mini-series, they had plenty of time to be able to work it in. It seemed almost as if they dawdled so much in the first several episodes that they then had to squeeze too much into the last couple.