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There's a man or two who've taken quite a shine, they want to be your love, eternally entwine, one's a shepherd who has nowt, the t'other carries lots of clout, but desires from your side fail to align. Then a soldier takes a glance and your enraptured, he's taken all you have to give, and you've been captured, you're in love, and now so happy, you get married, it's rather snappy, that's when the ties begin to weaken, becoming fractured. Soon the man who you have loved leaves you in tears, as he vanishes, dissolves and disappears, leaves a door for a rich neighbour, who wants to offer you his sabre, he's prepared to wait a while, long as six years.

Fabulous performances by some rather splendid actors in a tale that engages and engulfs.

In this sprawling adaptation of the Hardy novel, a beautiful woman in 19th century English countryside must select a suitor among three men. It has become fashionable to bash this film but it is quite an impressive production. Although she may not be exactly what Hardy had in mind, Christie is radiant as the heroine. The men pursuing her are well played by Finch as a rich landowner, Stamp as a cad, and especially Bates as a poor sheep farmer. Schlesinger's direction is leisurely and meticulous but he sustains interest despite the nearly three-hour length. The cinematography by Roeg is breathtaking and Bennett's score adds a haunting quality to the film.

This adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel is a lush Cinemascope production with a rich British cast. The flirtatious Bathsheba (J. Christie) is spoiled for choice between the dashing caddish soldier, the simple shepherd and the brooding landowner. But, alas, I wasn't really spellbound watching it. I just couldn't believe that Julie Christie was this headstrong 19th century maiden. She looks far too contemporary for me; as she is just the perfect 60s icon in costume (same as in Doctor Zhivago).

The actual visual aspect of the film made me wonder. The director was obviously trying very hard to give to this feature a feeling of the Dorset countryside. But, somehow, his efforts to include subjective camera, overhead shots, etc, didn't work for me. It didn't blend with the story. I felt that Bathsheba didn't evolve through the film. Julie Christie played the same way from start to finish, in spite of the ordeal she had to go through.

Alan Bates was perfect as the farmer turned shepherd, as was Peter Finch as the landowner. It's striking that some silent sequences that should have been devastating just left me completely cold. It lacked atmosphere. On the plus side, there is a nice score by British composer Richard Rodney Bennett.

I have never read a good word about this film in any movie guide, which frankly baffles me. I think it's a masterpiece, and despite Hardy being one of my favourite authors, I think this is actually better than the novel. It also contains two absolutely perfect moments. But first some general comments. The photography is gorgeous, actually looking more realistic than idyllic, beautiful but sometimes cold and forboding, brooding over the tragic proceedings. Secondly, the remarkable soundtrack by Richard Rodney Bennett lends the movie a good deal of its emotiveness. The use of English folk songs to comment on the proceedings is ingenious, sometimes impressively reflective of the situations, and at points extremely unsettling.

Julie Christie is beautiful and I found her Bathsheba the precise mixture of headstrong independence and vulnerability. Terence Stamp's repulsive Troy is a triumph of casting and Alan Bates is wonderful as the simpliest of her suitors. The film is stolen for me though by Peter Finch, who begins a hat trick of devastating performances, here, in The Trials of Oscar Wilde and Sunday Bloody Sunday. His Boldwood is a remarkable creation, so eligible, so tragic, so lost and helpless. His scene with Bathsheba when she suggests Christmas to be a time when she will make a decision on their future is heartbreaking. "Christmas," he smiles. "I'm happier now." But the scene that should surely secure this movie a place in film history is that in the graveyard. Without spoling the plot for those who have yet to see it, the gargoyle spewing rainwater over the graves as the sound of "The Bold Grenadier" plays is as affecting an image as one is ever likely to see on screen. The Boldwood plot has a darker outcome here than in the book, which I'm sure Hardy would have approved of. This is a beautiful and disturbing movie that does not shy away from Hardy's bleak view of existence, and adds to the mix a strong sense of gritty 60s honesty. Beautiful, devastating and unforgettable.

A British period drama; A story about a beautiful woman who arouses the ardour of three rival suitors in 19th-century rural Dorset. Headstrong, and having flirted and toyed with their affections, she chooses to marry one that leads to trouble. John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel is a superbly photographed production thanks to cinematographer Nicolas Roeg. The screenplay is faithful to the original story whilst maintaining the wit necessary for it to be engaging. Richard Rodney Bennett's wistful score works very well. Julie Christie is a fascinating presence. She is convincing as one, under whose spell, many a man could fall.

What a treat to see an adaption of this marvellous but hard going book, of course it's always worth the effort to read Hardy, but it takes getting into, you have to be in the right mind frame, so dramatisations of his wonderfully rich characters are always wonderful to watch, and open up his work to a wider audience I should imagine.

This film in particular was pretty true to the script, if a little condensed, in places. I felt Alan Bates was just fantastic on screen, but probably had the right amount of charm and screen magnetism for the box office, but a little too much to be a true Farmer Oak as described by Hardy, what women in her right mind would ever turn him down,being so sweet and looking like that, I must watch more of his films.

Everyone else was just brilliant as well, and it was lovely to see the beautiful Dorset I visit often so on the big screen and note it really hasn't changed that much at all since the filming in the 60's.

An excellent film, don't miss it !!!

This is a brilliant film from beginning to end and Julie Christie delivers one of the great female performances in movies. She is enchanting and utterly charming dominating every scene she's in because she is just so incredibly beautiful. Her three male co-stars, however, shine just as well and it's difficult to say which one is the best because they are all so good. It's the director, of course, who is responsible for creating this incredible ensemble of acting and John Schlesinger is one of the great directors who reigns at the peak of his field. But ultimately the film belongs to Julie Christie who is in virtually every scene. The promise she showed in Darling for which she won the Oscar is more than demonstrated here where she is so great she can only be compared with Garbo, Hepburn, Crawford or Davis. I am a Julie Christie fan forever.

The cast and the fact that I love the book(possibly my personal favourite of Thomas Hardy's work) were what drove me into seeing this Far From the Madding Crowd. And I personally really liked it, though I can see why people might not. It does have a couple of cliché moments and the film is overlong. On the other hand, the film looks gorgeous, the scenery is evocative and the cinematography positively shimmers. The music is hauntingly beautiful, the script is literate and thoughtful and the complex story unfolds slowly and deliberately, is faithful in detail and spirit to the book(in the film's favour rather than against it) and several scenes such as the scene in the graveyard have their impact. The direction from John Schlesinger is fine, I can see where some are coming from when they say his personality doesn't come through as it does in his other work but considering how different the story and his directing style is that's understandable, while the characters still have credibility and complexity if even more so in the book. Julie Christie is an affecting and spirited Bathsheba, Terence Stamp is appropriately soldierly and crusty, Alan Bates does down-to-earth very effectively and Peter Finch devastates as the tragic Boldwood. In conclusion, maybe not for everybody but I really liked it for mainly the cast, visuals and music. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Director John Schlesinger comes of age as a director in Far from the Madding Crowd. He moves away from the northern based kitchen sink dramas.

It gave him the confidence to take a crack at America. His next movie, Midnight Cowboy will get him a Best Director Oscar.

Running at just under 3 hours. This is still a condensed version of Thomas Hardy's sprawling novel.

In 19th century rural Dorset. Beautiful Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie) is managing a farm that she has inherited. She is romanced by three very different men.

William Boldwood (Peter Finch) is a wealthy older neighbouring farmer who has become mesmerised by Bathsheba.

Gabriel Oak a decent dependable shepherd who is rejected by Bathsheba and has a run of bad luck when his sheepdog drives all his sheep off a cliff. He ends up working as a farmhand for the woman he hoped to marry.

Then there is the dashing cavalryman Sergeant Troy (Terence Stamp) who cockily wins her affections but turns out ot be an unsuitable husband with his caddish behaviour.

It is clear that Bathsheba is confused by the men in her life and becomes a poor judge of character. She falls for the wrong man. Everyone is trapped somewhat by the conventions of the time especially Bathsheba who strives to be independent but is trapped by her beauty.

The film is beautifully photographed. It has evocative music. Christie is great in this movie, you can see why the men fall for her. Finch has the most difficult role and does seem slightly awkward.

Bates and Stamp though have no issues with their characters.

For many the casting of sixties beauty Julie Christie as the vulnerable heartbreaker Bathsheba Everdene was erroneous, but Christie does a fine job, and makes the role her own. Schlesinger remains faithful to the romantic spirit of Hardy, drenching the magnificent cinematography in the exquisite pastoral music of Richard Rodney Bennett, who clearly wrote under the influence of Vaughan Williams and Delius, while interpreting the story for the cinema very much in his own way. The film is long; but craftmanlike, and characterised by superb performances, with Peter Finch as the tormented Boldwood, and Alan Bates as Gabriel, who is the moral force within the story, particularly excellent. The film's climax is one of the most hauntingly poignant in sixties cinema.

I like to see it as an oblique commentary on the essentially tragical (and doomed) nature of selfish or sensual or possessive love; and the innate nobility of the marriage state buttressed by genuine mutual respect, with Gabriel as the agent of reason and decency amid so much unbridled passionateness....

This adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel condenses the source material into a mostly sedate, contemplative panorama of mid-19th century English rural life. Of the two hours and forty minutes it takes to unspool, one hour and twenty minutes are occupied with sweeping landscape shots (frequently from the sky so that the human subjects below are reduced to specks), varied views of daily farm labor, the bustle of a town market, an extensive tour of a traveling circus, a cockfight, a summer storm; we take the time to follow a little boy as he walks across a meadow repeating parts of his school assignment; we witness the procedure whereby sheep are saved from bloat; the plot pauses at three separate moments to allow various characters to sing folk songs that last several minutes each. Scattered amidst these atmospheric bits and the full measure of big-budget and authentic-looking production values we get, in measured doses, a love story, but with plot mechanics replaced by a pileup of fatalistic occurrences. A stolid shepherd (Alan Bates) declares his love for a beautiful girl (Julie Christie); she spurns him politely. Suddenly and unexpectedly she inherits a farm and he loses his sheep when his herd dog chases the flock over a cliff. She impulsively teases a neighboring landowner (Peter Finch) into thinking she may be interested in marrying him. When he proposes, she apologizes for her bad behavior and politely turns him down. While making her nighttime rounds of the farm, she suddenly and unexpectedly encounters a dashing soldier (Terence Stamp) when her dress catches on his spur. She quickly falls in love with him and marries him. Things go badly from there.

After Bates nobly saves the hay stacks from the rain by covering them with tarps, the thunder cracks, the wind effects expand, the music swells and "intermission" is declared, at which point it feels as if the makers of the film are trying to overinflate this essentially intimate, quiet and meandering tale to the dimensions of a grand blockbuster like "Gone with the Wind" or "Doctor Zhivago," and in fact, this was precisely the wrongheaded advertising hook used to promote the film, and it failed disastrously with the 1967 movie- going public. But its good points count for much, from the exceptionally watchable lead actors to a gallery of extraordinary supporting players, (many of whom look like time- machine transplants from the 1860s), to the stunning evocation of the era via costumes, settings and the very accents of the rural folk. Period music is also used with intelligence.

Far From the Madding Crowd is my favorite novel and an all-time literary classic. Thomas Hardy's superb storytelling and his cinematic descriptions of the people and places should have produced a great movie. Unfortunately, while this version has some good things going for it, it's not the book that Hardy wrote. The main character in FFTMC is Gabriel Oak. Most of what occurs is seen through his eyes. But the film comes across as a vehicle for Julie Christie, with the emphasis on her romantic relationships. Oak, the hero of the novel, becomes just another one of her suitors. I found the cast excellent, except for Alan Bates, who resembles the Gabriel Oak of the book but doesn't act the part. This could be due to the director, John Schlesinger or Frederic Raphael, the screenwriter who adapted Hardy's masterpiece without truly understanding it. The cinematography is beautiful and captures the Wessex that Hardy describes. I have a BIG problem with the score, by Richard Rodney Bennett, a fine composer whose soundtrack is much too dreary to my ears. I know that FFTMC story is somewhat depressing at times, but it's also romantic and celebrates the beauty of the English countryside. The music of British composers Ralph Vaughan Williams or George Butterworth would have been much more suitable. Other attempts have been made to film this book, but they have yet to get it right. I wonder if they ever will.

I have watched this film many tens of times and never tire of its beauty. Each viewing has me finding it even more beautiful than on the previous occasion – it may seem slow to first-time viewers but they should make the effort to watch the thing a few more times !!!

This film is without any doubt that which perfectly renders the atmosphere of Thomas Hardy's Wessex ! The careful filming, lighting and attention to the changing moods of the Dorset countryside is absolutely PERFECT, and the music is perfectly suited to the atmosphere ! This Film has just been issued on DVD in the UK but I was very disappointed to find that little or no remastering of the picture had been carried out and that, although the picture quality is reasonable for the time, I had been expecting the full treatment for a work of art such as this to get rid of remaining compression artefacts, spots, grain etc.! Also there are no subtitles for the deaf, and no subtitles or languages for foreign viewers (inadmissible !!) nor special features which you would expect for such a great work of art as this. Other films of Thomas Hardy country, such as Tess and others, pale into insignificance beside this one though it must be said that Tess, although taking place in Dorset was actually filmed in Normandy ( Cherbourg Peninsula) which would explain why the atmosphere wasn't the same.

Each scene of this film has remained indelible in my mind, the sheep being pushed over the cliff by the mad sheepdog, the corn market ( actually filmed in Devizes, Wiltshire ), the water flowing down Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset where poor young Fanny Robbins painfully seeking to mount during her last few hours on earth, the cock-fight, the beautiful views of the Dorset Coast with Durdle Door and the chalk cliffs, the romantic dalliance of Troy and Bathsheba doubtlessly filmed in one of those prehistoric burial mounds so common in Wiltshire. Truly, 'tis one of the most beautiful areas on earth. When I was at university in Bath, Avon, U.K. during the seventies, I made a point of visiting the Thomas Hardy country, and in particular the sites used in this film, as it was not too far away. I found a sense of timelessness there and the area has to be visited to 'feel' the atmosphere that the film exudes !

Above and beyond the magnificent sets and music, we have the actors' performance, which I seem to appreciate even more on each successive viewing of the film. Each character is very well developed and the performances are masterly even those of the minor characters. There is also a significant number of traditional songs of the day which are sung most convincingly by the actors. There is something quintessentially English about this film not to be found anywhere else, for this reason alone it should not be missed. I can only hope that one it will be remastered for picture and soundtrack and will then be truly appreciated on a home cinema.

Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie), a willful, flirtatious, young woman, unexpectedly inherits a large farm and is romantically pursued by three very different men.

Roger Ebert wrote, "Thomas Hardy's novel told of a 19th century rural England in which class distinctions and unyielding social codes surrounded his characters. They were far from the madding crowd whether they liked it or not, and got tangled in each other's problems because there was nowhere else to turn. It's not simply that Bathsheba (Julie Christie) was courted by the three men in her life, but that she was courted by ALL three men in her life." This is an interesting point. What he is essentially saying is that this upper class does not have to deal with the lower classes, but due in part to their limited numbers, they are forced to deal with each other. One supposes this could be said of the royal families in ages past -- marriages could be based on love, but it would be a limited love due to its bracketing of certain options.

If you are wanting fast action and thrills then this film is not for you, however, if you enjoy a good drama with a haunting score then look no further. Bathsheba Everdine (Christie)has three suitors in the form of the dashing Troy(Stamp) the dependable Oak (Bates) and the brooding/obsessed Boldwood (Finch). The story revolves around her relationship with each of these three men with rural Victorian England as the backdrop. I particularly enjoyed Terrence Stamp's performance as Sergeant Troy whose real love is Fanny Robbin and not Bathsheba. Richard Rodney Bennett creates a lovely haunting soundtrack which conjures up the English countryside. A smashing film!!

In rural Victorian England, vain and beautiful Julie Christie (as Bathsheba Everdene) attracts three handsome marriage prospects - poor sheep herder Alan Bates (as Gabriel Oak), wealthy older Peter Finch (as William Boldwood), and sexy sergeant Terence Stamp (as Francis "Frank" Troy). Director John Schlesinger's "Far from the Madding Crowd" may be your finest way to see the English countryside, as it is expertly photographed by Nicholas Roeg. This is picturesque beauty at its finest, with an excellent cast.

Scenes are staged as if D.W. Griffith were filming a British "Gone with the Wind" (Ms. Christie doing "Scarlett O'Hara"). But, there is too little story. It takes a long time for something exciting to happen - the startling performance by Mr. Stamp as he shows Ms. Christie how he wields his sword - this livens the film up considerably. Another high point is the strong performance delivered by beautiful newcomer Prunella Ransome (as Fanny Robin). But, apart from Stamp's phallic symbolizing, the story seems castrated.

****** Far from the Madding Crowd (10/16/67) John Schlesinger ~ Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Peter Finch, Alan Bates

"Far from the Madding Crowd" is a very long movie. Not only does it clock in at nearly three hours, but its slow, deliberate pace makes it seem longer. Now this might sound like I disliked the movie....well, I didn't. But I am warning you, as not everyone is like me and willing to watch something this long.

The story is from a Thomas Hardy novel, his first successful one at that. But unlike most films based on novels, I was shocked to read a summary of Hardy's story...and it's pretty much the film! And, I really do appreciate that the filmmakers didn't change the plot or tack on a happy ending or the like!

The story is about a most unusual woman for the 1860s. Bathsheba (Julie Christie) is a single woman who has inherited a large farm in England. Back then, women just didn't run large farms...they either hired a man to do it or, more likely, they married a guy so he can run the place. But Bathsheba has unusual notions for the time...such as not wanting to marry anyone who she didn't love first. This means that she did have suitors but instead of trying to date her and get to know her and win her heart, two of them (Alan Bates and Peter Finch) just asked her to marry her without any sort of prelude! Seen back then, this wouldn't have been so unusual...but you can understand a pretty young lady being taken aback from proposals that lacked any sort of romance! Unfortunately, the only man who actively tried to woo her during the film was a complete ne'er do well (Terence Stamp)...a man completely unworthy of her love. Where does all this go and how does the story end? See the film...and be prepared for a few surprises!

The film is simply gorgeous. The cinematography is lovely and appropriately gray, the music is terrific and the acting far better than I expected. Overall, one of Christie's best, if not her best. Despite her winning an Oscar for "Darling" and the fame of her film "Dr. Zhivago", I think here she is at her best.

So, if you see this one...give it a chance. Yes, it's slow...but it's also Hardy's vision and a sad yet enjoyable story as well....with a somewhat happy ending as well.

Thomas Hardy's romance of tragedy comes to the screen handsomely produced, with a fine cast and carefully interwoven human dramas, yet it is somewhat embalmed, lacking an inner-fire we in the audience can latch onto. The film might have been more exciting intrinsically had it not been preconceived as a tableaux picture--an awards-grabber; it looks quite beautiful, yet it's too steady, too smooth and slow. Julie Christie is lovely but somewhat monotonous as a fickle lass in Victorian-age Wessex who leads on three different men. The trouble with the film is, we are never sure if she's aware of the damage she's doing (if so, is she ashamed, is she ultimately a masochist who enjoys the game-playing or, if not, is she so guileless she's unaware of her treachery?). Perhaps Hardy's book makes the young woman's behavior more clear, but here we are never allowed to get inside her head--she's an enigma. Supporting performances are very fine, but unfortunately the screenplay leaves them all stranded by the final third, where the picture goes awry, leading to a cold finish. Terrific cinematography by Nicolas Roeg, and Alan Bates in particular is heartbreaking, but the movie is too low-keyed to make a big impact. **1/2 from ****

This movie featured a terrific cast, great acting, beautiful scenery and was an entertaining movie....but they needed to hire an editor. It could have been an hour shorter and had the exact same effect.

...so I rented and watched this again -- and I was every bit as bored and unimpressed as I remembered feeling after having watched it the first time!

Having read this book more than once (it is my favorite Thomas Hardy book, and one of my favorite books of all time), and having seen both filmed versions, I have to say that this version (with Alan Bates, Julie Christie and Peter Finch) cannot hold a candle to the BBC remake, released in 1998, with Nathaniel Parker, Paloma Baeza and Nigel Terry.

This Bates/Christie version was a great disappointment to me. Julie Christie was too old for the part of Bathsheba, did not fit Hardy's description of her at all, and has never impressed me as much of an actress -- an opinion which has only been substantiated by her high-school-calibre performance in this film -- a MAJOR casting faux pas! (and a slap on the hand to the makeup artist who made this supposed 19th-century character even more farcical by piling on the makeup until she looked like a Vogue cover girl, rather than the mistress of Weatherbury Farm).

Peter Finch's performance, as Boldwood, was admirable (actually the best of the film, in my opinion), but just did not elicit the strong feeling of empathy from me, as Nigel Terry did in the BBC version. In all fairness, Finch did not seem to have as much screen time, so character development was lacking.

The greatest surprise to me, in regard to this film, was that I also felt the same about Alan Bates' performance as Gabriel Oak -- he just did not convey the emotions and the quality of Oak's character, as described by Hardy in the book, and I found his portrayal to be PAINFULLY bland and boring. He seemed as though he was reading his lines straight off a teleprompter -- emotion and warmth were virtually non-existent! (a STRIKING contrast to Nathaniel Parker's sensitive, powerful, heart-wrenching portrayal of Oak in the 1998 film).

Part of the blame would have to be shared by the director of this version -- the actors APPEARED to be acting, and neither they, nor the director, seemed to have a firm grasp or understanding of the explicit emotions and personalities of the characters, which Hardy had gone to great effort and detail to describe in the book.

I highly recommend to anyone who has seen only this version -- or to anyone who has never seen either version -- that you rent or buy the 1998 BBC film, which is truer to Hardy's book (although some changes were made in that adaptation also, due to time constraints, it wasn't nearly as "choppy" as this one), and is a quality production in every way, and brilliantly acted, from the main players right down through the supporting cast.