'The Forsytes' period drama on PBS

Trailer.

I remember the one 20-odd years ago.

It was saved entirely by Damian Lewis, Ben Miles and Amanda Root.

Ioan Gruffudd shouted a lot and I was gobsmacked by how terrible Gina McKee was after I had been so impressed with her in Our Friends In The North.

Apparently we have to pretend that black people would have been stockbrokers in Victorian London. I'm all for telling the stories of black people in Victorian London, but not rewriting books and history and making up shit about how things were.

I liked Gina McKee but I really liked Rupert Graves. I think I’ll watch it again.

They lost me at 'reimagining'

I can't get over the stupid men's hairdos. No one had hairstyles like that in the Edwardian period.

Is Forsyte the new Pride and Prejudice? This is its third production for TV. The first in 1967 had terrible production values (the walls moved when someone slammed a door) but an excellent script. The 2002 version had a better cast than the first (give or take...), but the script left something to be desired (they should have used the '67 script and the 2002 cast).

It's a great soap opera, though, of a family's inherited wealth being largely frittered away over time, and Galsworthy's novel The Forsyte Saga (it's really three novels) is well worth reading. I believe he wrote a few more Forsyte novels, but I don't think they're read as much as Saga.

Read The Forsyte Saga. It's an excellent book. I didn't want it to end.

The book and the mini-series - both of them - are pure soap opera. Why this one keeps getting remade is beyond me.

Has anyone seen the Eric Porter troll?

I’ve always *intended* to read Trollope. I’ve really enjoyed all the Masterpiece Theatre series throughout the years.

I find his shows boring. I couldn’t finish The Way We Live Now with Cillian Murphy. Trollope had a specific view into the weathly middle classes; like Chekhov and Tolstoy and Austen. There is obviously lot to recommend him (and them) but I’m just not that interested in dissections into European class.

My stupid parents named me after one of the main characters in the Forsyte Saga.

I had to have my name legally changed in my early twenties.

^Irene...?

Writers win Nobels. Books do not win Nobels.

No - I'm male R14. It was Jolyon after Jolyon Forsyte.

Shit compared to what scintillating productions currently on TV?

The trailer makes it look absolutely ghastly. If you are doing a period piece, be true to the period, don’t tart it up to appeal to juvenile morons.

Pass.

That trailer looks like garbage. Irene is supposed to be stunning and Soames a prig. The actors look all wrong. Now that England is probably going MAGA will they stop with the colorblind casting when it makes zero sense in these historical dramas.

They are a movie of this in the 1940s and screwed up casting too. Errol Flynn as uptight Soames and Robert Young as the other man. What a mess.

They made….

r17 No, just a shit vibe overall. It honestly feels like an SNL parody, with one part that seems like an intro to a gay porno.

Or maybe the trailer is just cut horrendously, but something tells me the whole show will be like that.

Who is that creamy actor with the suckulent lips??

Joshua Orpin?

I don't understand why that one blond gigachad isn't on IMDb.

It’s no “Wuthering Heights.”

[quote] Now that England is probably going MAGA will they stop with the colorblind casting when it makes zero sense in these historical dramas.

Why didn’t someone tell Kenneth Branagh in 1993 how woke and confusing Much Ado About Nothing would be with Denzel Washington?

It was political correctness gone mad!

Did I see a mullet on the lead young lead actor?

And Francesca Annis??? Squeee!!!!!!!!!

[quote] I don't understand why that one blond gigachad isn't on IMDb.

Which one?

The one at 0:06 in the trailer.

Thank you, R29.

R26, was there talk about Denzel Washington in that role. He is such a good actor and played the part so beautifully that I didn’t notice. Now, Keanu Reeves was so SO terrible, so badly acted, that he stood out and that’s what all the talk was about.

you're welcome

Sadly I'm old enough to remember the OG. Our New Zealand actress Nyree Dawn Porter was in it. Eric Porter acted his part well and that squeaky wee Susan Hampshire was delightful.

THE Eric Porter?

Susan Hampshire will be in this new version in a smallish role.

It was a great version, r33.

Susan Hampshire wins the first of three (!) Lead Actress Emmys..

All on YouTube

The success of the first version of "the Forsyte Saga" when broadcast in the US inspired the creation of Masterpiece Theatre. Officially the first miniseries in that was another superb costume drama starring Susan Hampshire, "The First Churchills," which was about the first Duke and Duchess of Marlborough under six monarchs: Charles II, James I, William III, Mary II, Anne, and George I.

Loved the 1960s Forstye Saga, but yeah, it was made for a much more primitive form of video. Maybe they could do a 4K restoration.

A restored version is right there ^^

And it looks to be great quality, r42.

Rupert Graves and Damian Lewis version is my favorite. No need for this.

They're just buying into the current craze for opulent dramas about the wealthy that has made "The Gilded Age" such a hit. It's very much a sign of the times.

Disagree with you about the MGM movie from 1949, R20.

Called THAT FORSYTE WOMAN, it was admittedly an overview, a sort of greatest hits version of the books, but that said it was an accurate rendering of parts of the books and it was well cast, with Greer Garson as Irene, Walter Pidgeon as Jolyon, Robert Young as Philip Bossiney, Janet Leigh as June Forsyte, and a cast-against-type Errol Flynn as Soames Forsyte.

The surprise is that Flynn plays the role seriously as a possessive prig with a hidden reserve of vulnerability and does it very well, and the movie is faithful and serious in tone to the books. Good period detail, costumes (by Walter Plunkett) and lovely Technicolor cinematography.

All of which went very much went against what the public was going to movies for at the time. Like the books the film is dry and unsentimental (contrast that with MGM’s sappy Technicolor version of “Little Women” that year, which was a success.)

The FORSYTE film was a box office flop and neither critics nor audiences accepted Flynn in such a role, which was a great disappointment to him and accelerated his self-destruction during the 1950s. It was also the official end to Garson’s reign as box office Queen of MGM, a crown Lana Turner took from her in the post-war ‘40s.

But it’s very much worth a look for fans of the Galworthy novels. Not great, but by no means bad.

By 1949 Greer Garson was more the Queen Mother of MGM.

Had Flynn departed with Warner's by 1949 and thus free to make a film for MGM? I remember seeing video of him and Greer at the famous MGM anniversary lunch in their Forsyte costumes.

[quote] Charles II, James I, William III, Mary II, Anne, and George I.

I believe you meant James II there, R40.

Joshua Orpin IS creamy.

Totally forgot that Joshua played Superboy on Titans.

[quote] That trailer looks like garbage. Irene is supposed to be stunning

I think this Irene is indeed stunning.

It's funny that people can't tell the difference between a fantastical comedy written as a stage play over 400 years ago and set even 100s of years before that, when there was so little connection between characters and actors that men played women's roles, and a social commentary written in the last century that is supposed to reflect the author's own family and its experiences.

I can't even tell what or who you are talking about.

R54 If you mean Irene, she’s Irene Heron Forsyte, who is forced into an ill-fated marriage with Soames Forsyte. She was played by the beautiful actress Nyree Dawn Porter in the 1960s TV version.

I saw Nyree Dawn Porter as Charlotte in A Little Night Music aeons ago. Dorothy Tutin was Desirée.

I wish the BBC would remake ELIZABETH R, THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII and I, CLAUDIUS. Brilliant as they were, they were filmed like cheap soap operas making them virtually unwatchable today.

I, Clavdivs had excellent production values!

How many black and trans characters does it have? I demand 50%!

R57, the Beeb has quotas. It would be complete shit.

[quote]Apparently we have to pretend that black people would have been stockbrokers in Victorian London. I'm all for telling the stories of black people in Victorian London, but not rewriting books and history and making up shit about how things were.

They did it with Stonewall. You didn’t think they were going to stop there now did you?

R26, Denzel was so charming in that.

I don't remember anyone making a fuss about his casting. The only chatter I recall is a lot of praise for Emma Thompson.

Of all those English actresses of a type, Gina McKee is by far the worst. She has no range, her only affect is coldness, and in the earlier version of the Forsytes it seems the director recognized this. For a leaiing lady, she seems to be practically invisible.

Elder gay at r58, I wasn't saying the production design was cheap. Nor the costumes. I was talking about the quality of film or video or cinematography or whatever it would have been called back then that made everything look very "hollow" like a cheap soap opera.

R38 Thank you so much for this - I watched the first two episodes tonight and really enjoying it (though so many different characters to get to know early on - hard to keep up).

Is the 2002 version on Youtuube as well ?

Thanks again !

R65 Don't worry—if you make it through all 26 episodes of the 1960s version, you'll know them all like your own family.

For those commenting on the video quality of the 1960s version: if you are referring to the videos in their US version, keep in mind that the shows were taped in the PAL format in England, whereas the US used the NTSC format. PAL had greater resolution than NTSC, so the originals had to have some of their resolution stripped out for the US version. Of course, this was all analog way back then, so the conversion method was crude compared with today.

All British shows imported to the US looked worse than US shows back then (e.g., Monty Python, Upstairs/Downstairs). The first time I went to London and turned on a TV, I was in awe of how much better PAL TV looked compared with NTSC, because of PAL’s greater resolution.

The situation improved greatly when digital technology became available.

I remember hearing of about The Forsyte Saga when that was on 50 years ago. A lot. Too much.

I condole you, r58. How you must have suffered.

So can older shows like I Claudius be fixed somehow so it doesn’t look like a US soap opera?

I remember, the US version, NTSC had something to do with more channel availability? and PAL meant fewer channels but better quality picture.

Gentle r69, it was r68 who suffered so terribly.

It would behoove Masterpiece Theatre to remake some of their early successes with today's technologies and talented fresh UK casts than the the dreck they've lately been producing. Perhaps if The Forsytes is a big success it will encourage them.

Okay, I tracked the blond guy down, he IS Danny Griffin! He's listed in the IMDb credits, but all the way at the bottom, and has no headshot yet for some reason.

Actor/model from Cornwall, age 28. Very nice, although perhaps he should consider getting that mole removed from his face.

[quote] although perhaps he should consider getting that mole removed from his face.

We heartily agree, R73.

I can't believe they did this series again. It seems like just yesterday I was watching the 2002 version with you bitches.

R73, I didn’t realize until your post that I follow him on Instagram. I wonder where I learned of him before your post.

r76 You probably created this thread as well, then.

I didn’t actually, but thanks for linking.

They really powdered down that mole for the role.

[quote] They really powdered down that mole for the role.

Shave it off!

I, for one, think a face mole on the right face (like his!) can be quite sexy.

Beautiful people often look great with a single mole on their face because they act as beauty spots--think of Cindy Crawford or Marilyn Monroe. For a long time, people would even put fake moles on their faces to achieve this effect (think of Serena in "Bewitched," whose fake beauty spot kept showing up on different parts of her face).