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The good soldier [videorecording] / Granada ; by Ford Madox Ford ; adapted by Julian Mitchell ; producer, Peter Eckersley ; directed by Kevin Billington.

Contributor(s): Material type: FilmFilmPublisher number: AMP-9241 | Acorn MediaPublication details: [Manchester] : Granada Television ; Silver Spring, MD : Distributed by Acorn Media, c2007.Description: 1 videodisc (104 min.) : sd., col. ; 4 3/4 inISBN:
  • 1569389241
  • 9781569389249
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Saddest story -- All good people -- Unlikely friendship -- Everything and nothing -- Poor Maisie -- Sentimental -- Truest of all -- August 4th -- Facing the truth -- Visiting the Ashburnhams -- Desperate -- Tension building -- Dying of love -- Selfish -- Bit of rest.
Production credits:
  • Photography, Tony Pierce-Roberts ; film editor, Edward Mansell ; musical direction and original music, John McCabe ; designer, Michael Grimes ; costume designer, Robin Fraser Paye.
Cast: Robin Ellis (John Dowell), Susan Fleetwood (Leonora Ashburnham), Vickery Turner (Florence Dowell), Elizabeth Garvie (Nancy Rufford), Jeremy Brett (Edward Ashburnham), Pauline Moran (Maisie Maidan), Goeffrey Chater (Bagshawe), John Ratzenberger (Jimmy).Summary: In the decade preceding World War I, two wealthy, handsome couples--English Captain Edward Ashburnham and his wife Leonora, and American John Dowell and his wife Florence--meet at a German spa and forge an immediate bond. Through nine seasons at various spas, the splendid foursome lives elegant, perfect lives. But nothing is as it seems. As John says at one point, "My wife and I knew the Captain and his wife Mrs. Ashburnham as well as was possible to know anybody. And yet we knew nothing about them at all." The film explores the power games, class snobbery, sexual lies, and lack of intimacy that boil beneath the placid, pristine exteriors the upper classes show the world. The story is presented in flashback, a literary technique Madox Ford helped popularize.
Audiovisual profile: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult DVD Adult DVD Main Library DVD DRAMA Good sol Available 33111007875095
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Jeremy Brett, Robin Ellis, and Susan Fleetwood star in director Kevin Billington's adaptation of author Ford Madox Ford's non-linear tale of marriage, deception, and infidelity. Soon after meeting in a German spa, a British couple and an American couple form a pleasant friendship. In the weeks that follow, the bond between the two couples gradually begins to erode as the deceptive veneer of normalcy is stripped away to reveal that nothing is what it appears to be on the surface. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Originally produced for British television broadcast in 1981.

Special features: Cast filmographies, Ford Madox Ford biography [text features].

Saddest story -- All good people -- Unlikely friendship -- Everything and nothing -- Poor Maisie -- Sentimental -- Truest of all -- August 4th -- Facing the truth -- Visiting the Ashburnhams -- Desperate -- Tension building -- Dying of love -- Selfish -- Bit of rest.

Photography, Tony Pierce-Roberts ; film editor, Edward Mansell ; musical direction and original music, John McCabe ; designer, Michael Grimes ; costume designer, Robin Fraser Paye.

Robin Ellis (John Dowell), Susan Fleetwood (Leonora Ashburnham), Vickery Turner (Florence Dowell), Elizabeth Garvie (Nancy Rufford), Jeremy Brett (Edward Ashburnham), Pauline Moran (Maisie Maidan), Goeffrey Chater (Bagshawe), John Ratzenberger (Jimmy).

In the decade preceding World War I, two wealthy, handsome couples--English Captain Edward Ashburnham and his wife Leonora, and American John Dowell and his wife Florence--meet at a German spa and forge an immediate bond. Through nine seasons at various spas, the splendid foursome lives elegant, perfect lives. But nothing is as it seems. As John says at one point, "My wife and I knew the Captain and his wife Mrs. Ashburnham as well as was possible to know anybody. And yet we knew nothing about them at all." The film explores the power games, class snobbery, sexual lies, and lack of intimacy that boil beneath the placid, pristine exteriors the upper classes show the world. The story is presented in flashback, a literary technique Madox Ford helped popularize.

DVD; Dolby Digital sound; full screen presentation, aspect ratio 4x3.

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