Tuesday 10 - Victorian films

I’ve done this before, a list of things I want to read/watch, but since I’m sick and have had no sleep this past weekend, here’s a list of Victorian movies I find interesting. So this 10 isn’t going to be the best I’ve ever done – fast and easy this week!

On a side note, if anyone knows of a book/movie from the early 1850s, can you pass it along?

10 Victorian films (in no particular order) I want to watch …should I ever find the time again.

1. The Inheritance - loosely based upon Louisa May Alcott's novella
2. Berkeley Square – British miniseries where three young nannies find jobs in well-to-do London households and get to know each other
3. The Buccaneers - Based on Edith Wharton's unfinished novel
4. Wives and Daughters – BBC production of Elizabeth Gaskell’s book
5. North & South – not that one, though I’ve seen it and have enjoyed it, but another Elizabeth Gaskell’s book
6. The Barchester Chronicles - Alan Rickman is in it, need I say more? OK, based on the Anthony Trollope book.
7. The Crown Prince - I’ve been meaning to watch this for a while, I love Austrian history. Hopefully soon I’ll get to it.
8. Disraeli - look at the political and personal lives of PM Benjamin Disraeli
9. The Way We Live Now – I don’t mean to be on an Anthony Trollope kick, but he did write a lot of books BBC enjoys making into movies!
10. The Woman in White – based on the Wilkie Collins novel (also wrote The Moonstone)

Victorian Movies

One thing led to another this afternoon and I got to thinking about Victorian-set movies. Googling them (Victorian movies) gave me 2 lists I could work with. The first was not as good as I'd have liked. No matter how much I love Herbie, there's no way you could convince me that Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo is Victorian-set.

Then I got to thinking of some popular movies, of which there are dozens. Phantom of the Opera jumped out at me. It's been done. And redone. And then done once more with Gerald Butler (yes ladies, you may now swoon).

It's the story that's loved, the anger and angst of the phantom, the romance of Christine and Raoul, and the classic good versus evil. But I wonder how many people realize the setting? Sure, they're in magnificent gowns and sharp tuxedos and horse and carriages clatter through, but do they understand the era? The innovations, the restrictions, the changing political views and reforms. Even the corsets.