Far from the Madding Crowd

Another movie that I watched recently largely because it was about to expire from my DVR was the 1960s adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel Far from the Madding Crowd.

Now, the first thing that I need to point out is that I haven't read the original novel, so I don't know how much the movie differs from the book. That, and any of you who have read the book will, I presume, already know the basic story. In mid-1860s England, one of those parts in the southwest where there are cliffs overlooking the ocean, lives sheep rancher Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates). Well, he's not really a rancher since he's poor and doesn't own any land; he just raises sheep. He lives near Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie) and loves her and would like to marry her, except that he's terribly poor and she would like at least a bit better of a living than Gabriel could currently provide her.

And then disaster strikes. One of Gabriel's two border collies is evil, breaking down the fence to the pen where the sheep are held, not only allowing the sheep to escape and stampede, but literally driving them to their mass death on the beach at the bottom of the cliff! Now Gabriel has no land, no sheep, and no money to buy new sheep, leading him to look for a job with one of those gentry farmers who employs a bunch of people. On his way to the village where farmers look for new labor, we meet Sgt. Frank Troy (Terence Stamp). He's got a girlfriend Fanny (Prunella Ransome getting an "introducing" credit but winding up with only a modest career) in these parts, who stops him while his platoon is traveling by horse and ask him about the promise he made to marry her. Frank says he'll marry her when the time is appropriate.

Gabriel gets to town, and looks to get hired as a shepherd. On his way to a possible new job, the cart comes across a fire in the servants' houses, and Gabriel takes charge in how everybody tries to put the fire out, leading to some notice for him. The next day he shows up with the rest of the workers at a farm owned by... Bathsheba!? It seems Bathsheba's uncle died, bequeathing her his farm, and she's decided to take it on even though she doesn't really have anybody to run the place. She and Gabriel recognize one another, but now that there is a class difference between them any thought of marriage is out of the question.

Living on the farm across the way is William Boldwood (Peter Finch), to whom marriage would seem to make sense, at least in the class system of Victorian England. Indeed, William would like to marry Bathsheba after she on a lark finds a valentine left in her uncle's papers and sends it to William on a lark. But she's not serious about marrying him. Bathsheba meets Sgt. Troy because, as it turns out, Fanny is one of the workers on Bathsheba's farm. Fanny's presence there brings frank to Bathsheba's presence. When William finds that Frank is there, he gets jealous and tries to get Frank to leave, only to find out that Frank has already married Bathsheba, not Frank.

Frank, however, doesn't really love Bathsheba so much. And he's decided he's not going to marry Fanny because, in the meantime, he did set a wedding date. The only thing is, she went to the wrong church, the one at the garrison instead of the one in the village. That led the hot-headed Frank to decide no, I'm not going to marry you if you're so damn stupid. Plus, Bathsheba also has at least some money that Frank can burn through. All of this leads to quite a bit of sadness for the various characters, although I can't go into much more detail without giving away some serious spoilers.

This version of Far From the Madding Crowd is one of those 1960s films made on location in Britain with some lovely cinematography and production design. The performances are pretty good, too. However, the film runs close to 2:45 plus an overture and intermission music (the print TCM ran didn't have exit music). And, I have to admit, the movie does feel like it has a leisurely pace. So if you have a rainy day without much else to do, Far from the Madding Crowd is definitely a reasonable way to spend some time with.