And in my Wanderings....

Something you should know about me: just because I use a picture, character, gif, quote, or what have you on my blog or in my life; it does not mean that I've seen the original source, nor know anything about it.

I simply use it because it's fitting. I know an awful lot ABOUT them - but most comes from fandoms so it's not true......

That being said: this is what I feel like.

"Yes. Pardon me. I'm just going to come over here and pound my head against the wall. Just ignore me. You do anyway."

Granted, my currect source of irritation is a bit before my time - BUT WHO CARES!!!!

Now, as the reader may have realised, I am currently locked in the past again. If my almost entirely Peter Cushing oriented posts haven't clued you in, I'm going to suppose you've not read them.

A bit too late to say that...

I love Classics. There were literally all I read growing up, and they have rather tinted my viewpoint. My education in film was decidedly not classical - but I am quite able and willing to remedy that on my own. And I quite often do so! However, one of the ways I venture further into classical films and productions is through adaptations of the books, plays, and stories I read. Sometimes a film will then lead to reading the book - but usually I read the books first.

Pride and Prejudice is a very enjoyable book. I had expected it to be some dull romantic novel - and I suppose it is a romance, but it's hardly dull. Romance bores me, and the romance in Pride and Prejudice was not obvious and so didn't detract from the plot in the slightest.

I've seen the 1995 miniseries and quite enjoyed the adaptation. I really can't understand how ANYONE would watch it for...love or romance. But the costumes and the acting.... I would quite reccommend it on those counts.

I do enjoy comparing adaptations. Sherlock Holmes being a genre or character I especially enjoy doing this with, I...haven't done it extensively with P&P but I have dabbled.

I've seen Austenland, which I chiefly watched for J.J. Fields and was....accceptable on all other points. I generally hate that type of plot though simply because it's...frustrating. One knows that something will happen to frustrate the growing love, and both parties will go away hurt and disappointed, but just when all seems hopeless they will get back together.

I am well aware that is basically the plot of P&P too - but for whatever reason, it doesn't carry it off so....badly.

I also saw some of Lost in Austen but gave up because - really??  No. Let's just...not. It was fanfiction, and ranked equal with Young Sherlock Holmes. Completely not worth it. The Kingsley version has been disregarded as an unfaithful adaptation, as was the other I'd heard of that I now can't remember.....

But there was one adaptation I longed to see.

In 1952, BBC adapted Pride and Prejudice  in a miniseries. I suppose the precurser to their 1995 - except I believe there was at least another miniseries in the sixties as well.....

That one held nothing on my interest however. Being an old adaptating, it's not as easy to find and the costumes are generally...lacking.

However, this is BBC, so I'd likely be surprised.

Alright, I'll probably watch it.

However, I really  wanted to watch this adaptation.

I don't care if it was accurate, I don't care if all of the actors were horrid: I want to watch it!

Why?

Quite simple: Peter Cushing.

I know. Completely surprising.

But Cushing, one of my favourite actors, in the role of Darcy, one of the best characters? What is there not  to like? Especially as he would then be in the majority of the production rather than a few scenes.

And no one dies.

Just imagine it. An excellent, clean film, with a superb actor, that I could freely reccommend to anyone! Without trying to explain why I enjoy vampyres or why I like Hammer Horror as long as Cushing is in it.....

The only downside to it is, of course, explaining that I really don't care for the romance, and don't understand what 'hot' is, and definitely don't watch it because of any 'crush' - but that is a small price to pay.

I had looked this miniseries up a year ago when I first stumbled across Peter Cushing - or at least was exposed to his genius beyond Star Wars  - and when I renewed my interest (fixation? mourning?) recently, I wondered why in the world I had never watched this brilliant film before!

I found out why.

For all that I feel relatively safe with BBC, and generally enjoy anything I watch by them, there are a few things I hate about their past.

Some people hail Stephan Moffat as the evil villain writer, I think BBC is worse.

Shall I give you an example? Two words: LOST EPISODES.

Understanding now?

Basically, some brilliant genius in BBC's past thought it wise to purge the archives to save space or something. At the same time, give or take a few years - the end result is the same, old film cannisters were reused for new productions to save cost.

Now, as I stated before, I can understand budgets. For whatever reason, it always seems BBC runs on nothing - maybe it's just Doctor Who.... But is that really any excuse to justify the loss of such...treasures?

Certainly, television was a new medium and only beginning to replace the radio - but I can be as unjust as I want. I can't watch ten episodes of Cushing's Holmes, and now I can't watch his Mr. Darcy.

....I find it amusing that I'm only so riled up about this - I only found OUT about this - because of Peter Cushing.

But the Lost Episodes! Rather famous - or infamous - actually. Probably - again - because of Doctor Who.

This series also fell prey to the Purge and BBC's habit of reusing film. (Other studios probably did it too - but I'm not talking about other studios at the moment....) However, it fared better than Cushing's Holmes did: people had copies of the film.

Whether these copies were gifts to actors that had taken part in serials, or whether they were the original versions of pirated films - who knows! who cares....  BBC was able to get back quite a bit of their lost episodes and rectify the error.

Not all of them, many of the First and Second Doctor's serials are still missing - but at least they recovered a few.

Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, fared not as well.

P&P? Welll....... That's actually an entirely different problem.

You see, BBC's 1952 adaptation was neither Purged nor filmed over. No, it was never recorded in the first place.

....can you see how that would be a problem?

Oh, you fortunate modern people that have modern tastes - you are so blessed to be in a world where an episode or televised production is immediately recorded and stored somewhere on the internet.

Of course, I am certain that in the future someone else will be trying to watch the productions of OUR time and will be bemoaning some other shortcoming.....

But that is not this day! Today, I cannot watch Peter Cushing's role in P&P!

At least I found out why I didn't watch it before.

That aside, I did find two other films to watch: The Mummy  and 1984 - both starring Peter Cushing, of course. Please don't be surprised. It ought to be expected by now.

At least those still exist.