GREAT NOVELIST (Bates) STORY TURNED INTO A GREAT MASTERPIECE THEATRE
Added 1/25/2009
This "Love for Lydia", book turned film, is done as masterfully as H. E. Bates wrote the novel. Bates was a master at depicting life in the country and this film, all 13 episodes takes one on a pleasant trip through the countryside of England, with occasional jaunts into London. The scenery is beautiful.
H.E. Bates is also well known for "My Uncle Silas" and "The Darling Buds of May" which also have been converted to video versions. This indeed has become a Masterpiece Theatre classic.
Lydia is masterfully played by Mel Martin ("The Pallisers" & "Persuasion") giving such a performance that you can't quite decide if you love her or hate her. She seeks love, not found in her youth, after 2 decades. In the late 1920s, near her 21st birthday, she begins to become interested in men and love. She struggles with what it is to be and how it is to be shown. Her wealth seems of little consequence.
Young newspaperman, Edward Richardson (Christopher Blake)also a want-to-be writer, helps bashful Lydia, through the insistence of her aunts, get her skates wet and enter society of other young adults. He falls in love with Lydia, but will Lydia respond fully? Must it be unrequited love? Richardson's friend, Alex (Jeremy Irons also of "Brideshead Revisited"), rich and always drinking, encourages Edward. To a point!
Other friends join the trio and create a flapper-era dance group racing from one party to the next enjoyable outing. Till their worlds begin to crash, one at a time. In the end, who can survive the life-style and who will find love? There seems to be a lot of love and lovers to pass around.
Is it drama or romance? Is it historical or period? Perhaps all of the above. It is an enjoyable 650 minutes done in 13 episodes that will delight any British literature fan as well as those who have come to expect excellence from Masterpiece Theatre.
Captioning would have been nice, but is not completely necessary. Make sure you buy the complete set, you will want to see the total once you get episode one started. It's so nice having this on DVD and not being expected to wait a week between episodes.
I have read the book and watched the DVDs. I heartily recommend both.
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PBS Masterpiece Theatre Classic
Added 2/9/2008
The love of Lydia is the story of an heiress who grows up amid aristocratic society of the 1920s to 1930s England. Lydia is beautiful and lives life through a self-centered personality that makes men fall passionately in love with her while she simply toys with their emotions, not caring a bit for the pain and suffering she causes to others wherever she goes.
The story is filmed with the exquisite care of every detail that PBS Masterpiece Theatre provides. The development of the characters is so magnificent that we found ourselves discussing the exchanges that take place as Lydia demands that all men she meets cater to her wishes. Lydia is selfish, arrogant, and egotistical. Her ways bring up consequences that put an end to the life of one of her suitors and put her own health in jeopardy.
If you have teenagers around, this is a great series of episodes to watch and discuss to ensure personal growth and understanding of human nature, choice and the consequences of living life without a care for others.
We highly recommend purchasing the set and watching these episodes with your friends if you want the lively discussions that will make this a memorable experience.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Disappointing
Added 3/24/2007
I was hoping for something on a par with "Pride and Prejudice" or "Upstairs Downstairs"; this doesn't approach that. The production quality may be okay, but I don't consider the story itself to be worth the time.
2 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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Love for Lydia Revisited
Added 3/10/2007
My wife and I just finished watching the 13 episodes of one of our favorite Masterpiece Theater offerings as the DVD version. It has been nearly 30 years since it appeared on PBS, thus we saw it from a different perspective than our initial viewing. It was still a compelling experience, and particularly interesting to see the early performances by Jeremy Irons, Peter Davison, Christopher Blake and Mel Martin. We continue to associate them with the roles they played in this production. Rachel Kempson, Beatrix Lehman and Michael Aldridge were delightful in their roles as Lydia's aunts and uncle.
Like so many of the Masterpiece productions of that time, the actors and actresses in this presentation are so convincing that we felt like a flies-on-the-wall observing life in a small village in England in the 1920's. Also like other PBS Masterpiece productions of this period, the attention to detail with automobiles, costumes and settings is very impressive, but a subtle backdrop for the story.
We highly recommend this for any one who enjoyed the original TV version as well as for those who would be viewing it for the first time.
4 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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WIll You Hate Her?
Added 1/28/2004
Well I have mixed feelings about this Masterpiece Theater Production. I'm not sure I would want own it to watch over and over, once may be enough, but it was thoroughly well made, it never occured to me this was a 1970ish film. The acting was top of the line, costumes and sets were certainly well done and not cheap. But as to the story, I am a person who likes to like the people in the movie. Like would be way too strong a word for these charcters, there were only redeeming moments, in fact the characters are so human they are downright disgusting at times. Lydia whom everyone loves, you find is selfish unkind, manipulative, but beautiful and rich so why does everyone love her anyway? Your typical mean girl who's so pretty she can get away with it. But I won't give the story away, it exlores this wickedly selfish manipulator of men in the 1920's and how it eventually ruins not only them but her. It is sad, not your feel good story, but it is about love true and painful and about character more then plot although there is some huge tense explosions of that here and there in the end that shock and sadden. So I have mixed feelings, you don't like the main people too awfully much but they are interesting to watch just when you hope they'll be nice. There are a few genuinely kind few like Tom and Nancy, not main characters but they balence it out. And Alex played by Jeremy Irons is intrigueing and not so bad as a faithful friend. We watched these Lydia epiosodes every night until the end, you want to know what will happen, it does hook you, and you invest yourself in the characters, wondering where their lives will take them. But it is a tragedy of sorts. I will say the acting in this film was superb and outstanding by all, not one left you wanting. Recommended: The House of Elliot a feel good series set in 1920's starring two strong female leads, and Poldark more tragic if you like that. Both are period pieces.
16 out of 17 people found this helpful.
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Still a classic
Added 8/30/2008
Saw it many years ago on Masterpiece Theatre and loved it. Still enjoy it! Must love all things British. Jeremy Irons was and still is a hottie!
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If you like Agatha and Jane Austen, don't waste your time here
Added 8/29/2007
One of the bad apples in British programming that I encounter sometimes when I buy something I haven't seen... like "Portrait of a Marriage" as one other example...
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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