Pride and Prejudice (1939)
#4 in my movie challenge for 2006 was the 1939 film version of Pride and Prejudice, starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. While Garson looked too old to play Lizzie, she displayed enough humor that this wasn’t a serious detraction. Seriously distracting, though, were the dresses and the hats, embellished to outrageous degree in old Hollywood fashion. Olivier makes a fine, handsome, dark, and brooding Darcy, but the true standouts, as in most versions of the story, are the actors who play Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine. The screenplay was adapted by Aldous Huxley. While it’s good, I often wondered at the departure from the original material, especially the lack of its famous opening line. The lack of class conflict in this version, as well as the modification of the Lizzie/Lady Catherine confrontation at the end, make this a very light version of Austen’s book, which most would say is hardly heavyweight itself.