Posted on July 17th, 2010
Originally broadcast in 1971, the telly production of Stella Gibbon’s 1932 current, “Frigid Comfort Farm” helped to open the first season of PBS’s signature series, “Masterpiece Theatre”.
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This is a ample remake and is director, John Schlessinger’s acclaimed 1995 film adaptation starring a TERRIFIC Kate Beckinsale as the recently orphaned, Flora Poste.
Set in the 1930’s, in England, Flora writes to all of her relation, hoping someone will rob her in as she has no true drive or ambition, attach for possibly becoming the next Jane Austen. Flora accepts an offer from The Starkadders Of Cool Comfort Farm in Howling, Sussex. She thinks that she fair might like farm life and it might be capable for her writing career. However, once she arrives she finds out that the farm has had a curse upon it along with all of the inhabitants, human and animal alike.
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The Starkadder family is comprised of Amos & his forelorn wife, Judith, & their two virile & rakish sons, Seth and Reuben. As Flora says, “Highly sexed young men living on farms are always called Seth or Reuben.”
Also living at Chilly Comfort is a pretty waifish sprite of a cousin, Elfine, the hired relieve, Adam Lambsbreath, Urk, Rennet & Mrs. Beetle. Also locked in her chambers is an archaic crusty hermit of a grandmamma, Ada Doom (appropriately named) . The Starkadders & the rest of the clan are pure country folk with pure country ways. Their lives being quite traditional in disagreement with Flora’s.
Flora sets out to change it all though and with some priceless and hilarious scenes ensuing. Flora tries to bring everyone around to a higher current sense and does it with tall gusto.
With lines in the film like:
Amos Starkadder: Seth, drain the well. There’s a neighbor missing.
Violet: She b’aint worf it Urk, she jus b’aint worf it!
and the two most repeated and beloved lines in the film:
Ada Doom: I saw something atrocious in the woodshed! & “There has always been Starkadders on Chilly Comfort Farm.”
This film is a gem, a improbable adaptation of the original and a stout and amazing surprise for it’s viewers. A large cast and performances with the tremendous Ian McKellen,Kate Beckinsale, Joanna Lumley, Eileen Atkins and Rufus Sewell. I highly recommend “Chilly Comfort Farm”!
Happy Watching!
This is a capable and fairly faithful adaptation of Stella Gibbons’ 1932 modern of the same name. The film brilliantly captures the quirkiness of the new which is a hysterically comic, tongue in cheek parody of the heavy handed, dusky novels of some early twentieth century English writers who had previously been so approved. The film is likewise hysterically comic and itself seems to parody British costume dramas.
Buy,Download, Or Stream Cold Comfort Farm! Click Here
The film starts out innocuosly enough, when well educated Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale) finds herself orphaned as a young woman. Discovering that her father was not the wealthy man she believed him to be, she is resigned to the fate of having to live on a hundred pounds a year. After some discussion with her estimable friend, the wealthy Mrs. Smiley (Joanna Lumley), Flora opts to live with relatives, rather than fetch her bread. She seeks out a most unlikely position of relations with whom to do so, the decidedly peculiar Starkadder family who live in rural Howling, Sussex.
Therein begins what is certainly one of the funniest movies to grace the silver camouflage. When Flora arrives in Howling, she meets her curious relatives, who live in neglected, ramshackle “Cool Comfort Farm”, where they mild wash the dishes with twigs, and have cows named Graceless, Pointless, Feckless, and Aimless. Headed by a matriarchal ancient crone, Flora’s aunt, Ada Doom Starkadder (Sheila Burrell), who has not been good in the head since she “saw something disagreeable happen in the woodshed” nearly seventy years ago, they are a motley and queer crew indeed. Confronted with their harmful and dim existence, Flora sets about trying to do things to suitable.
Peppered with eccentric, memorable characters, this film will bewitch the reader on a whisk not easily forgotten. Kate Beckinsale is toothsome as the practical, no nonsense Flora Poste. Joanna Lumley is appetizing as the sophisticated and wordly Mrs. Smiley. Eileen Atkins is a standout as Flora’s sad first cousin, Judith Starkadder, Ada’s daughter. Rufus Sewell is well cast as Judith’s son, Seth Starkadder, the oversexed ladies man. The role of the fire and brimstone preacher, Amos Starkadder, is played to perfection by Ian McKellen, while Shiela Burrell is nothing short of sensational as the imperious Ada Doom Starkadder. The rest of the supporting cast is likewise uniformly generous.
Buy,Download, Or Stream Cold Comfort Farm! Click Here
All in all, this is a hilariously silly film and every bit as bright as the original upon which it was based. It is certainly worth having in one’s personal collection, as it is a keeper by any standard.
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