User reviews

This film has been made several times and is unique as it hints at the dark side of a Victorian father's attachment and need to control his 8 children after the death of his wife. It has made it this far as a tale to be told because it involves a love story between poets Elixabeth Barrett-Browning and Robert Browning ( a jug of wine and thou...) etc... the screenplay had some gumption and the heaviness of decades of repression that is a sickness all its own. This is a story of freedom, escape, stealth, and virtue as well.

Will someone PLEASE find out if it will ever be for sale anywhere again?

This version of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" is the most romantic show I've ever seen--it even beats out the '83 version of "Jane Eyre" which is marvelous. I too wish "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" would be put on video or DVD or both; it's too good to not be made available. I saw it years ago on A & E. I don't remember if it was part of A & E's "Family Classics" series, though--it might have just been broadcast and not part of a series. I also saw the '83 version of "Jane Eyre" on A & E. It would be great if A & E or some other station could broadcast "The Barretts of Wimpole Street." Perhaps PBS, although they usually broadcast shows that have been made recently.

Perhaps I am biased by first impressions, but this BBC rendition of The Barretts of Wimpole Street, which I saw prior to viewing the Norma Shearer film, strikes me as superior to the MGM effort in nearly every way. While I am second to none in my admiration for the lovely Shearer, to my mind Jane Lapotaire embodies Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett to the life: gentle, melancholy, loving, somewhat self-absorbed (at least prior to her meeting with Browning), possessed of inner strength and idiosyncratically attractive. She also conveys a warm sincerity, which Shearer, good as she is, sometimes fails to do. With Jeremy Brett there is, as with Lapotaire, casting perfection: dashing, passionate, seductive, and, as Elizabeth calls him on their first meeting, 'overwhelming'. In fact, nearly every role in the BBC rendition is ideally cast, not least Joss Ackland, who bestows unheard-of depths of loathsomeness upon Edward, the paterfamilias of the Barrett clan. Charles Laughton for MGM, veering wildly from robotic cipher to bellowing martinet to lachrymose clown, cannot hope to compete with the subtlety and power of Ackland's frightening portrayal. Virtually the only character which I feel is more vividly played at MGM is Wilson the maid. Una o' Connor's warm-hearted and eccentric rendition is far preferable to that of the BBC's rather palely anonymous actress. A beautiful version of an enchanting play.