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Rating:  - The World before the Great War
An melancholy look at the world of England's landed gentry a year before the war they once called the Great War, a world that will never exist again. Don't let the remarks about "digital restoration" give you the impression this is a film made in the 1930s. It was released in 1985, and thus before DVDs, hence the need to make it digital. If you watch serious BBC shows, you'll recognize a number of the actors. And unlike some, I found nothing disappointing with the film's colors.
Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II
Rating:  - Privileged Life in Another Era
Outstanding period drama about a weekend on a British country estate where family and friends have gathered to shoot birds. The cast is stellar, the setting gorgeous and the script spell-binding. During the visit, we get to know the characters quite well, watching them surreptiously exchange bed partners and secrets. The men in the shooting party are highly competitive, exact count is kept of how many birds are shot and by whom, a practice which ultimately leads to tragedy. By the end of the weekend, many lives are transformed forever. This is underscored by the ending which denotes who goes off to war and what happens to them.
This is a wonderful movie, so well acted. It is a gem worth watching and enjoying the life style of a generation now past.
Rating: - the shooting party
an elegant depiction of english country life before the high tech world. a poignant look at family interactions in the upper middle classes.
Rating: - Finally on DVD.
Beautiful DVD starring James Mason as an aging Lord in Edwardian England.
It includes a stellar cast with names of the caliber of John Gielgud and Gordon Jackson.
The story shows the decline of the old Aristocracy in England, at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Last movie (at least as far as I know) by veteran James Mason, before he died, he still could catch your attention and keep you interested in the way he was working.
The transfer is the best one I have seen as yet. So is also the soundtrack which is very clear and has a beautiful score by John Scott.
For those who love good old British movies, the way they were made, when this still meant high standards at a low budget.
Rating: - Yummy
I caught this movie on late-night TV one time, and wanted to own it. I hesitated to buy the original DVD because of the negative comments about the quality of the transfer.
I just got the new DVD and I'm watching it right now. It's like taking a bath in pure Englishness. The color is perfect English autumn - washed-out, foggy, muted, and the sound is perfect. James Mason is perfect as the tired, end-of-an-era lord, while Sir John Gielgud is perfect as the upcoming liberal society. In the two of them you see the end of one epoch and the beginning of another. All that's missing is the transition, and it's about to arrive - in the form of WWI.
This is one lovely movie.
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