I can't compare this version of the very delightful book with the movie, because all I can remember about the movie is that I kept wishing I could hear Alistair Sim say, "There will be no butter IN HELL!" My mother and I would say that to each other when appropriate for the next 40 years. I was shocked to realize how long ago we must have seen this, and there are still so many scenes and themes that stick with me from the book and the series, but the movie went in one eye and out the other. Have fun, people, any Cold Comfort is better than no Cold Comfort, but maybe, if enough people review this on IMDb, the BBC will come out with a DVD. Or make an arrangement with HULU.
12 Reviews
mad and faithful to the book
didi-514 October 2009
Stella Gibbons' 'Cold Comfort Farm' is one of the classics of parody, and this version with Alastair Sim, Rosalie Crutchley, Fay Compton, Sarah Badel, Brian Blessed, Aubrey Morris and Peter Egan does it justice. Very 1960s in its outlook it is well played and written and has just the right hint of madness. Badel in particular as Flora Poste is note perfect.
Compared with the version with Kate Beckinsale this is much better, and deserves to be seen more widely. Although a VHS did come out in the USA, maybe a DVD beckons from the BBC? It should fit well alongside other classics adapted around the same time, and as it is in colour should find a wide audience.
Compared with the version with Kate Beckinsale this is much better, and deserves to be seen more widely. Although a VHS did come out in the USA, maybe a DVD beckons from the BBC? It should fit well alongside other classics adapted around the same time, and as it is in colour should find a wide audience.
Something Nasty in More Than the Woodshed
aramis-112-8048804 October 2017
Warning: Spoilers
As Dogberry said in Shakespeare, "Comparisons are odorous." Nevertheless, while this review focuses on the 1968 "Cold Comfort Farm" it will also refer to the 1995 movie.
Background: COLD COMFORT FARM was a comic novel of the 1930s by Stella Gibbons. The novel was not only rural farce beating "Green Acres" by thirty years, it was also a futuristic fantasy (an element lost in dramatizations); but its futuristic fantasy element was fairly flimsy, considering Gibbons had characters refer to movies as "talkies." Though ostensibly satirizing rural novels like those of Mary Webb and Thomas Hardy (Gibbons begins her novel with a preface to a fictitious rural novelist), it's good enough to stand alone as a comic novel ranking with Wodehouse or Douglas Adams.
Story: Flora Poste is a nineteen year old Londoner who decides to sponge off her relatives. Deciding to join the Starkadder family on a Sussex farm, she finds herself in the world's most dysfunctional family. She sticks it out, (1) because the Starkadders imply some "rights" Flora has because of a wrong done to her father decades before, and (2) to bring some no-nonsense order to the Starkadders' chaos.
The Dramatization: The cast looks good on paper. Rosalie Crutchley is a perfect personification of Judith. Her burly son Reuben, who wants the farm from his father, is ably portrayed by Brian Blessed. Freddie Jones does a masterful job as the thoroughly disgusting Urk, as does Aubrey Morris as "Mr. Mybug." Peter Egan falls a little short as Seth, but he's good looking and a fine actor.
From there, we go downhill, cast wise. Three of the major players are inadequate. Sarah Badel, a fine comic actress (watch her in "The Taming of the Shrew" opposite John Cleese), doesn't take Flora Poste seriously (a much better choice was made in the 1995 movie with the serious-minded and prettier Kate Beckinsale). Nor does Aunt Ada Doom fare much better. Fay Compton's credits go back to the silent era and she scored a palpable hit in the recent (at the time) "Forsyte Saga" (which was amazingly popular in both England and America). The story depends on the final showdown between Flora and Aunt Ada, but neither actress, in this situation, comes off strong enough (or, in the case of Badel, serious enough) to make the confrontation worth waiting for.
The biggest disappointment is Alastair Sim as Amos Starkadder, Judith's husband and patriarch of the wacky clan. Sim is a proved performer, but perhaps because of creeping age (he was nearly 70 and looks it) he feels weak. This is too bad, because Amos is a fiery preacher of one of Gibbons' finest creations, "The Church of the Quivering Brethren." The Quivering Brethren is often misunderstood. Gibbons herself was a Christian and the Brethren is not a Christian group. They never refer to a new Covenant, despite one passing reference to a line in Matthew. For the Quivering Brethren there is no Redemption, no Salvation. They are sinners bound for hell. The Salvation of Christ has nothing to do with this group. (One serious error made in the 1995 movie was filling the church with Christian symbols, though the utterly lost Brethren in the novel, who come to hear about their certain damnation, feel more like a satanist offshoot).
After the insufficiency of Sarah Badel (especially as compared with Beckinsale in the '95 version) and Sim's fading powers, the worst thing about this version is the production itself.
Like so much British television of the time, "Cold Comfort Farm" was videotaped in long takes, and apparently with insufficient rehearsal. The cast speaks over each other, like a bad Robert Altman movie. The production values are pretty grim--which is perfect for the first part, as the Starkadders start off pretty grim. But "Cold Comfort Farm" remains grim throughout. And why does Flora's friend Mary have that annoying accent? Not only that, the narration by Joan Bakewell simply isn't good (compare it to the narration of Elizabeth Proud in the radio version often repeated on BBC radio 4-extra).
I love COLD COMFORT FARM and though I'm constantly reading new things I revisit the Starkadders every year. It would be nice to find a version that truly nails the spirit Stella Gibbons gave it. Neither this version nor the 1995 film (which gets Amos all wrong) live up to the wonderfully comic source material. But both this version and the 1995 have lots to recommend them, as well as lots to criticize.
Background: COLD COMFORT FARM was a comic novel of the 1930s by Stella Gibbons. The novel was not only rural farce beating "Green Acres" by thirty years, it was also a futuristic fantasy (an element lost in dramatizations); but its futuristic fantasy element was fairly flimsy, considering Gibbons had characters refer to movies as "talkies." Though ostensibly satirizing rural novels like those of Mary Webb and Thomas Hardy (Gibbons begins her novel with a preface to a fictitious rural novelist), it's good enough to stand alone as a comic novel ranking with Wodehouse or Douglas Adams.
Story: Flora Poste is a nineteen year old Londoner who decides to sponge off her relatives. Deciding to join the Starkadder family on a Sussex farm, she finds herself in the world's most dysfunctional family. She sticks it out, (1) because the Starkadders imply some "rights" Flora has because of a wrong done to her father decades before, and (2) to bring some no-nonsense order to the Starkadders' chaos.
The Dramatization: The cast looks good on paper. Rosalie Crutchley is a perfect personification of Judith. Her burly son Reuben, who wants the farm from his father, is ably portrayed by Brian Blessed. Freddie Jones does a masterful job as the thoroughly disgusting Urk, as does Aubrey Morris as "Mr. Mybug." Peter Egan falls a little short as Seth, but he's good looking and a fine actor.
From there, we go downhill, cast wise. Three of the major players are inadequate. Sarah Badel, a fine comic actress (watch her in "The Taming of the Shrew" opposite John Cleese), doesn't take Flora Poste seriously (a much better choice was made in the 1995 movie with the serious-minded and prettier Kate Beckinsale). Nor does Aunt Ada Doom fare much better. Fay Compton's credits go back to the silent era and she scored a palpable hit in the recent (at the time) "Forsyte Saga" (which was amazingly popular in both England and America). The story depends on the final showdown between Flora and Aunt Ada, but neither actress, in this situation, comes off strong enough (or, in the case of Badel, serious enough) to make the confrontation worth waiting for.
The biggest disappointment is Alastair Sim as Amos Starkadder, Judith's husband and patriarch of the wacky clan. Sim is a proved performer, but perhaps because of creeping age (he was nearly 70 and looks it) he feels weak. This is too bad, because Amos is a fiery preacher of one of Gibbons' finest creations, "The Church of the Quivering Brethren." The Quivering Brethren is often misunderstood. Gibbons herself was a Christian and the Brethren is not a Christian group. They never refer to a new Covenant, despite one passing reference to a line in Matthew. For the Quivering Brethren there is no Redemption, no Salvation. They are sinners bound for hell. The Salvation of Christ has nothing to do with this group. (One serious error made in the 1995 movie was filling the church with Christian symbols, though the utterly lost Brethren in the novel, who come to hear about their certain damnation, feel more like a satanist offshoot).
After the insufficiency of Sarah Badel (especially as compared with Beckinsale in the '95 version) and Sim's fading powers, the worst thing about this version is the production itself.
Like so much British television of the time, "Cold Comfort Farm" was videotaped in long takes, and apparently with insufficient rehearsal. The cast speaks over each other, like a bad Robert Altman movie. The production values are pretty grim--which is perfect for the first part, as the Starkadders start off pretty grim. But "Cold Comfort Farm" remains grim throughout. And why does Flora's friend Mary have that annoying accent? Not only that, the narration by Joan Bakewell simply isn't good (compare it to the narration of Elizabeth Proud in the radio version often repeated on BBC radio 4-extra).
I love COLD COMFORT FARM and though I'm constantly reading new things I revisit the Starkadders every year. It would be nice to find a version that truly nails the spirit Stella Gibbons gave it. Neither this version nor the 1995 film (which gets Amos all wrong) live up to the wonderfully comic source material. But both this version and the 1995 have lots to recommend them, as well as lots to criticize.
I prefer this one to the later movie.
bjameson28 July 2003
To me, this really is a case where the BBC beat John Schlesinger. The 1971 PBS showing was so good, it did cause me to find the Stella Gibbons and read it. If it was only for the Alistair Sim portrayal of Amos Starkadder, this one would still be worth watching.
Both have their virtues - and Mr. Jones!
Bob G.27 December 2006
Warning: Spoilers
First of all, has anyone else noted that the gifted British actor Freddie Jones, who plays both Urk and Dr. Mudel in the earlier version, also plays Adam Lambsbreath in the latter? While I adore Atkins and McKellan as Judith and Amos, Sim and Crutchley (and especially Crutchley) are outstanding and definitive as the mad married couple of the book.
I will never get over the crotch-level shot of Seth in the first version during his speech about the spiders. I, too, saw this production on Masterpiece Theatre as a youth, and it has never left me. I made tracks to see the recent film, which I love for many reasons. Still, was there ever a more resplendent rehabilitated Ada Doom than Faye Compton? (Note for trivia buffs: Both Compton and Crutchley appear in the classic film THE HAUNTING.)
I will never get over the crotch-level shot of Seth in the first version during his speech about the spiders. I, too, saw this production on Masterpiece Theatre as a youth, and it has never left me. I made tracks to see the recent film, which I love for many reasons. Still, was there ever a more resplendent rehabilitated Ada Doom than Faye Compton? (Note for trivia buffs: Both Compton and Crutchley appear in the classic film THE HAUNTING.)
Misses its mark
veebee220 February 2023
I was very much looking forward to seeing this. The cast looked very promising (especially Alastair Sim) and the BBC has a high reputation when bringing classic literature to the screen.
Somehow, somewhere, it all went wrong. Even by the standards of 1968 it is obviously studio bound, and the sets are so cramped you never get the idea of the farmhouse as a house, just the corner of a room here, a gate in the farmyard there. The camera set-ups are such that the main action always seems to be obscured by something in the foreground. The director also seems to be well on-board with the 60's 'sexual revolution' (basically people stopped hiding what they'd been doing anyway) and we are treated to shots of 'ploughing' (fnrr-fnrr) cut with a woman writhing in ecstasy in the main titles. There's also a bit of a manure fetish going on for some reason.
I was disappointed in the performances, which are too broad. The Starkadders are grotesques, but they need to be kept within bounds or they just look silly. There is so much ranting and raving in the first episode that it isn't so much funny as tiresome, especially by Billy Russell. Even Alastair Sim only gets into his stride during the sermon to the Quivering Brethren in part two. Sarah Badel is a bright and level-headed Flora, and Rosalie Crutchley makes a good Judith, but not enough to surpass the hint of madness in Eileen Atkins' eyes in the Schlesinger version.
It's not just the age of the production which is the problem here, it's the tricksiness of the director and his indulgence of the actors. I give it six stars because Alastair Sim is in it, but even he is not at his best.
Somehow, somewhere, it all went wrong. Even by the standards of 1968 it is obviously studio bound, and the sets are so cramped you never get the idea of the farmhouse as a house, just the corner of a room here, a gate in the farmyard there. The camera set-ups are such that the main action always seems to be obscured by something in the foreground. The director also seems to be well on-board with the 60's 'sexual revolution' (basically people stopped hiding what they'd been doing anyway) and we are treated to shots of 'ploughing' (fnrr-fnrr) cut with a woman writhing in ecstasy in the main titles. There's also a bit of a manure fetish going on for some reason.
I was disappointed in the performances, which are too broad. The Starkadders are grotesques, but they need to be kept within bounds or they just look silly. There is so much ranting and raving in the first episode that it isn't so much funny as tiresome, especially by Billy Russell. Even Alastair Sim only gets into his stride during the sermon to the Quivering Brethren in part two. Sarah Badel is a bright and level-headed Flora, and Rosalie Crutchley makes a good Judith, but not enough to surpass the hint of madness in Eileen Atkins' eyes in the Schlesinger version.
It's not just the age of the production which is the problem here, it's the tricksiness of the director and his indulgence of the actors. I give it six stars because Alastair Sim is in it, but even he is not at his best.
Dreadful
christopher-r-brewster30 November 2013
While there are some strong performances, the crude production values and chaotic direction make this show truly painful to watch. Zooming the lens in and out "real fast" is the sort of thing people did with Super 8 cameras 45 years ago, but it was hardly funny then and is sort of pathetic today. The later film is, by contrast, a real pleasure. Much of the 1968 production calls to mind Monty Python at their worst, which puts to question what it is trying to achieve. We could not make it past the first of the three episodes. There are some solid acting performances (Alistair Sims is terrific, and Sarah Badel does a fine job) -- which is the only reason I have not given this film an "awful" rating. It is, however, awful, and I could not wait for it to be over. What is truly unfortunate is that the later version with Kate Beckinsale is very well done, and this show may discourage viewers from watching it. Skip the '68 show; watch the film.
A treat for Cold Comfort Farm aficionados!
drysdale2229 August 2004
I was astonished and delighted to discover, quite by chance, that the BBC's 1971 production of Cold Comfort Farm was available on tape. Ironic that it should only be available in American format!The dramatisation of a favourite novel is seldom received with unreserved pleasure by aficionados, but I well remember my own wholehearted delight in this particular instance.
Comparisons are odious, of course, but I felt John Schlesinger's more recent film lacked the rawness and anarchy of Peter Hammond's production I found it altogether too picturesque. I also sorely missed Joan Bakewell's narration, which so successfully incorporated, in the earlier version, the wonderful purple passages of Stella Gibbons prose. For me nothing could equal Alastair Sim's extraordinary performance as the tortured Amos, nor surpass Rosalie Crutchley's interpretation of the bereft and despairing Cousin Judith. Definitive too, is the imperturbable normalcy of Sarah Badel's Flora Post, especially in the chaotic and violent scene of Ada Doom's Counting! I originally saw the production in black and white, which I think might have been a plus I found the colour insipid rather than atmospheric but I highly recommend this production to any Cold Comfort Farm enthusiast!
Comparisons are odious, of course, but I felt John Schlesinger's more recent film lacked the rawness and anarchy of Peter Hammond's production I found it altogether too picturesque. I also sorely missed Joan Bakewell's narration, which so successfully incorporated, in the earlier version, the wonderful purple passages of Stella Gibbons prose. For me nothing could equal Alastair Sim's extraordinary performance as the tortured Amos, nor surpass Rosalie Crutchley's interpretation of the bereft and despairing Cousin Judith. Definitive too, is the imperturbable normalcy of Sarah Badel's Flora Post, especially in the chaotic and violent scene of Ada Doom's Counting! I originally saw the production in black and white, which I think might have been a plus I found the colour insipid rather than atmospheric but I highly recommend this production to any Cold Comfort Farm enthusiast!
Worth watching this alternative version.
ant50123 December 2006
Nothing, but nothing, can beat the original novel by Stella Gibbons. Ostensibly a parody of earthy novels such as "Precious Bane" and the stuff by D.H. Lawrence, it is in fact a brilliant satire about the human race and what makes us tick, or not tick at all.
The closest any dramatisation has come to capturing her philosophy was probably the BBC Radio 4 version. Sometimes radio has better pictures, because you create the visuals yourself.
This early TV version suffered visually from being studio-bound, presumably because that is how things were done in those days. It also suffered, visually at least, from being directed by Peter Hammond, who loved 'frames within frames' and getting sexual symbolism into every shot; perhaps fashionable at the time but now seen as cliché ridden and hackneyed. However, it has a good cast and although it is really creaky by today's standards it is worth seeing if only as an alternative to the later and in my opinion less interesting John Schlesinger version, which had a huge budget and played the script for its laughs, avoiding the point of the novel.
So what IS the point of the novel? Well, read it and see. We all know a Judith; we all know an Aunt Ada; we all know people who blame their current condition on something in their past, either real or imaginary; we all know many of the human traits and foibles satirised in the novel. What Stella Gibbons did, deliciously, was not just to parody the style of novels by D.H. Lawrence and Mary Webb ("fecund rain spears" and "bursting sheaths") but also to extol the benefits of leading a tidy life full of beauty and harmony. She encapsulates the characteristics of the entire human race into one farmhouse full of superficially dysfunctional people. Read the novel, but, above all: read between the lines.
The closest any dramatisation has come to capturing her philosophy was probably the BBC Radio 4 version. Sometimes radio has better pictures, because you create the visuals yourself.
This early TV version suffered visually from being studio-bound, presumably because that is how things were done in those days. It also suffered, visually at least, from being directed by Peter Hammond, who loved 'frames within frames' and getting sexual symbolism into every shot; perhaps fashionable at the time but now seen as cliché ridden and hackneyed. However, it has a good cast and although it is really creaky by today's standards it is worth seeing if only as an alternative to the later and in my opinion less interesting John Schlesinger version, which had a huge budget and played the script for its laughs, avoiding the point of the novel.
So what IS the point of the novel? Well, read it and see. We all know a Judith; we all know an Aunt Ada; we all know people who blame their current condition on something in their past, either real or imaginary; we all know many of the human traits and foibles satirised in the novel. What Stella Gibbons did, deliciously, was not just to parody the style of novels by D.H. Lawrence and Mary Webb ("fecund rain spears" and "bursting sheaths") but also to extol the benefits of leading a tidy life full of beauty and harmony. She encapsulates the characteristics of the entire human race into one farmhouse full of superficially dysfunctional people. Read the novel, but, above all: read between the lines.
In defense of the 1971 TV version
MJBM911927 January 2003
I agree that the film version is far superior to the TV version, but when I saw Cold Comfort Farm in 1971 I loved it. Then I discovered the novel, read it, and immediately bought copies for all of my friends. I had to drive almost 100 miles to see the movie, and it was worth it. The movie is better than the old TV version, but the book is much, much better than the movie. I will always be grateful to Masterpiece Theater for introducing me to this treasure.
To "Early TV" for words
emuir-121 December 2003
The only enjoyment in watching this TV version was the nostalgia it brought back for all those wonderful old TV productions of the "why don't they do the kind of dramas they used to do". One forgets just how crude they were at times. I was more interested in the sets, and whether they would remain standing than I was in the action. The production just screams TV studio set. Although Rosalie Crutchley and Brian Blessed gave their usual outstanding performances, it made me appreciate the Kate Beckinsale film all the more.
Avoid this awful TV version
notmicro29 October 2001
See the wonderful 1995 movie version instead! I'm a big fan of British comedy and drama, and of the early 1970's Masterpiece Theater series that ran on PBS. However this early TV version is an absolute train-wreck of a production; everything about it is really bad. Those involved seem to have been watching too many Fellini films and seen too many stage productions of Marat/Sade, and thought it would be a fun idea to try incorporating a similar approach here. The result is a bizarre and amusingly unwatchable mess.
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