Enchanted Serenity of Period Films: February 2008

A Room with a View

Lucy Honeychurch, a young Englishwoman, makes her first visit to Florence, Italy in the early 1900's. There, she meets a quiet yet eccentric young man named George Emerson. Upon her return to England, Lucy must decide whether to follow through with her marriage to her stotic fiance, Cecil, or follow her heart and her growing attraction to George.

Based on a novel by E.M. Forster

Starring
Helena Bonham Carter
Julian Sands
Maggie Smith
Judi Dench
Daniel Day Lewis
Rupert Graves
Rosemary Leach

Another version of this novel was made in 2007,

written by Andrew Davies and aired on ITV

IMDB link for 2007 film

IMDB link for 1985 film

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Based on a little known 1848 novel by Anne Bronte, Tara Fitzgerald stars as an enigmatic young woman who moves to 19th Century Yorkshire with a young son. Distancing herself from everyone in the village and their prying questions, she remains totally aloof until a charming neighbor farmer gets her to reveal her past through his persistence. Only then does she reveal she is hiding away from a womanizing, belittling husband. ( Written by John Sacksteder Imdb)

Starring
Tara Fitzgerald
Toby Stephens
Rupert Graves
James Purefoy

Gilbert Markham & Helen Graham

with Arthur Huntingdon

Frederick Lawrence

LOOK-ALIKES

Felicity Jones (Northanger Abbey) and Gemma Arterton (Lost in Austen)

When I saw Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day)

I couldn't help but think of JJ Feild (Northanger Abbey)

And what about Tom Hiddleston from Return to Cranford?
Yes JJ has 2 look-alikes but I still think he's one of a kind!

Two actors that I enjoy and I thought could pass for look-alikes:
Left: Paul Bettany (The Young Victoria, A Knight's Tale) and
Right: Simon Woods (Pride and Prejudice, Cranford)

Orlando Bloom (Lord of the Rings) and Rupert Friend (Pride and Prejudice)

I was watching Truman show and thought Natasha McElhone reminded me of someone and I finally figured out that she resembled Kate Winslet...what do you think?

Some people (including a certain Kimberley from Manchester)
have suggested that Meryl Streep and Jennifer Ehle resemble each other:

pic above found here
Whether or not they look alike, they are both awesome actresses.
It would be fun to see them play mother and daughter some day...
(although Meryl has acted with her own daughter, Mamie Gummer
& Jennifer has acted with her own mother, Rosemary Harris)

Kiera Knightley (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice, Pirates of Caribbean)
and Natalie Portman (Other Boleyn Girl, Goya's Ghosts, Cold Mountain)

Kiera also played one of Natalie's doubles in Star Wars

Molly Parker (Iron Jawed Angels) and Olivia Williams (Miss Austen Regrets, Emma)

Cillian Murphy (He Knew He Was Right) and Tom Welling
[found at Popular-pics.com]

Steve McQueen and Damian Lewis (Forsyte Saga)
[found at damian-lewis.com]

Romola Garai and Drew Barrymore...

(Romola is top left and bottom right)

Jessica Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard
(co-stars in The Help)

See more look-alikes

The Dreamer of Oz

This 1990 TV movie may be harder to find but it is worth it especially if you're a fan of the 1939 classic.

The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story is a film that stars John Ritter as Lyman Frank Baum, the man who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and eighteen of the other Oz books.

Also starring in this TV movie was Annette O'Toole as Baum's supportive wife Maud, and Rue McClanahan who played Baum's tough mother-in-law, Matilda Gage.

The film depicts how L. Frank Baum came to create one of the best loved stories of all time, while undergoing professional and personal failures.
IMDb link

I just noticed that they've released a special edition of Wizard of Oz that comes with The Dreamer of Oz tv movie...

Madame Bovary

Based on a novel by Gustave Flaubert.

A young woman in her late teens, a reader of novels and with high hopes of romance and passion, marries a widowed country doctor. Although he dotes on her, she is soon bored and discontent. First, she gives her imagination to a law student in town, and next she takes a lover. When he refuses to run away with her, she takes up again with the law clerk. Her spending on dresses and furnishings mounts; these debts and her ill-advised professional counsel to her husband bring his ruin. (Written by jhailey @Imdb)

Starring:

Emma Bovary: Frances O'Connor

Charles Bovary: Hugh Bonneville

Rodolphe: Greg Wise

Léon: Hugh Dancy

A 2007 poll of contemporary authors, published in a book entitled The Top Ten, cited Madame Bovary as one of the two greatest novels ever written, second only to Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Frances O'Connor

Ahhh....Hugh Bonneville

Hugh Dancy

PBS Masterpiece Link for 2000 film

"The lady's going to faint, break the windows"
a funny video clip from the 1949 film with Jennifer Jones

A Little Princess

This 1995 film is based on a 1905 children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett

When her father enlists to fight for the British in WWI, young Sara Crewe goes to New York to attend the same boarding school her late mother attended. She soon clashes with the severe headmistress, Miss Minchin, who attempts to stifle Sara's creativity and sense of self- worth. Sara's belief that "every girl's a princess" is tested to the limit, however, when word comes that her father was killed in action and his estate has been seized by the British government.
(Synopsis by James Meek IMDB)