Far From The Madding Crowd
1967
Directed by John Schlesinger
Produced by Joseph Janni
Screenplay by Frederick Raphael
From the novel by Thomas Hardy
Cinematography by Nicholas Roeg
Music by Richard Rodney Bennett
CAST:
Julie Christie – Bathsheba
Terence Stamp – Sergeant Troy
Peter Finch – William Boldwood
Alan Bates – Gabriel Oak
Fiona Walker- Liddy
Prunella Ransome – Fanny Robin
Freddie Jones – Cainie Bell
John Barrett- Joseph Poorgrass
Terry meets Julie
Waterloo station
Every Friday night …Millions of people swarming like flies ’round
Waterloo underground
But Terry and Julie cross over the river
Where they feel safe and sound …
Ray Davies, Waterloo Sunset, by The Kinks, 1967
Terry meets Julie … for years it was a classic pub quiz question. Who were Terry & Julie? And the answer was that the song was inspired by Terence Stamp and Julie Christie, staring out of a film poster for Far From The Madding Crowd at Waterloo station. I’d have it running through my head every time I got off a train there, and I reckon in late 1967 there might have been a poster …
But it’s wrong. Far From The Madding Crowd was released on 16 October 1967. Waterloo Sunset entered the UK charts on 13 May 1967, on its way to number one. At that point the film was months from a poster. Sorry.
It was a fantasy about my sister going off with her boyfriend to a new world and they were going to emigrate and go to another country.
Ray Davies, 2008 interview
He’s also said later that it was about his nephew, Terry. Also, most of the posters focussed on Julie Christie … because her three suitors got near equal attention. It was Julie and Terry and Alan and Peter.
Ah, well. The soundtrack album decorates our TV room wall, in a group of five framed soundtracks. I last watched the film in 2015, after seeing the new version with Carey Mulligan. The 1967 version wins hands down. I think of it as a huge success, which it was in the UK, but according to IMDV, not in the USA.
Cinematography by Nicholas Roeg …
Among these 60s retrospectives it shouts out “class!” in every department. The cinematography is by Nicholas Roeg, soon to switch to directing with Performance, Walkabout, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth. Look at the selection … reflections, shadows, vaseline on window panes, silhouettes. The silhouette shapes appear in the 2015 version too … a tribute. It’s not all clever shots, most of it is conventional, but there are so many stunning pieces of camera work.
In a 2017 interview, Terence Stamp talks about the sword scene, where Bathsheba falls for Troy. He says Schlesinger did a very short scene, and Nicholas Roeg felt it should be greatly improved, and worked for days after hours on extra footage with Stamp (hence the sunset background in some shots). Stamp is adamant that this, the best scene in the edited movie, was all Nicholas Roeg’s direction.
Stamp added that he is left-handed, and Schlesinger was insistent that dragoons in the 19th century would have been forced to be right-handed in childhood, so insisted that Stamp use his right hand, which took him many hours of practice.
The team …
Producer Joseph Janni employed serious film director Joseph Losey for Modesty Blaise and then TV star director Ken Loach for Poor Cow. For this one, he went for John Schlesinger, fresh from two films with Julie Christie, Darling and Billy Liar. Before that he’d done A Kind of Loving with Alan Bates. Terence Stamp was in all three Joseph Janni films mentioned. Frederick Raphael wrote Darling.
In that Terence Stamp interview, he says he was cast by Joseph Janni, and foisted on John Schlesinger who did not want him. They were both professionals and got on with it.
The cast …
Then there’s the cast … Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Alan Bates and Peter Finch, dropped into the cream of character actors playing the Dorset folk around them.
The locations …
Gold Hill, Shaftesbury. Gabriel Oak and dog, plus Sgt Troy’s troop.
For me, living in Dorset, it was always spot the location … Maiden Castle, Dorchester for Sergeant Troy’s sword demonstration, Durdle Dor for the beach he swims from, Shaftesbury’s Gold Hill for the soldiers to ride along, and for Fanny Robins to creep to the workhouse. The Corn Exchange is over the Wiltshire border in Devizes. The beach is Weymouth. Bathsheba’s house is Bloxworth House in Bere Regis. The cock fight takes place in the folly, Horton Tower. The Tithe Barn is at Abbotsbury. Squire Boldwood’s house is in Sturminster Newton. I know all these places. I’ll see most of them at least once a year. In 1967, the traffic racing to holidays in Devon and Cornwall tended to by-pass Dorset and go north of the county. Roads have improved through the middle, but back in 1967, it was little known to outsiders.
The original story …
Thomas Hardy is our local hero. Plaques abound in the county. What it means is we have a superb underlying story … it was written in 1874, and takes place in the early 1860s. At that point, a local guide book tells me, the rural poor of Dorset were among the poorest in the country. Actually, the principles go for very light accents or none at all. They leave the accents to the yokels. E.M. Forster in Aspects of The Novel was snotty about Hardy’s use of coincidence to drive a narrative, but in this, Hardy aligned much more to later 20th century works, which enjoyed creating a fiction, and coincidence was a necessary part of it.
Hardy re-named every town in Dorset to create his fictional county forthe Wessex novels. So Dorchester becomes Casterbridge, Bournemouth becomes Sandbourne, Bridport becomes Port Bredy.
The film sticks close.
Plot …
Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates) and Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie). He fancies his chances.
Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates) is a solid Dorset sheep farmer, and he has set his heart upon Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie) but she explains that she does not love him.
One of Gabriel’s sheepdogs goes berserk in the night and decides to drive Gabriel’s flock of sheep over a high cliff edge to fall to their deaths way below. (Karen, my viewing companion always gets upset about the mechanics of filming this … it looks very real!) Gabriel shoots the dog.
Bathsheba (Julie Christie) and Liddy (FionaWalker). Bathsheba must take charge of the estate.
Gabriel has lost everything and goes off to a hiring fair in Casterbridge, the county town. He seeks a job as a bailiff, but has to resort to being a shepherd. Meanwhile, Bathsheba has inherited a large farm and house. Gabriel is employed, but his pride is stung and he leaves.
Gabriel saves her mutton
Bathsheba’s sheep wander into a field of legumes and collapse dying of gas bloat. Gabriel is persuaded to come and save them by piercing their intestines. Bathsheba is realizing that she has to run a large farm, and most of the farmhands are not too bright.
Sheep dipping. There are a lot of sheep in the first 15 minutes
Being a young girl, Bathsheba jokingly sends a valentine’s card with “Marry me” to William Boldwood (Peter Finch) a wealthy local landowner, and somewhat older and definitely landed gentry rather than farmer. He takes it seriously and falls in love with her and proposes.
William Boldwood (Peter Finch)
We see a troop of soldiers, led by Sergeant Troy (Terence Stamp). They pass a girl, his sweetheart, Fanny Robins (Prunella Ransome). Actually, I did think that the plumes, matching horses and immaculate uniforms were as if for a royal coronation parade, rather than befitting a rural garrison. One odd point in otherwise authentic looking costume, however they are supposed to look imposing. We see Troy with Fanny in a bedroom.
Troy turns up at night at Bathsheba’s estate, apparently his home area and meets her.
Fanny (Prunella Ransome) waits in the wrong church
Troy has proposed marriage to Fanny, who is pregnant (I’m not sure that he knows) and waits for her in the church. She has gone to the wrong church and sits watching the regimental band practice. By the time she realizes and races to the right church, Troy is in a cold fury and rejects her.
Do you get my point? The classic scene.
Bathsheba at Maiden Castle – prehistoric earth works at Dorchester
We have the stand out scene at Maiden Castle where Troy woos Bathsheba by demonstrating his swordsmanship (literally … with a sword!). She falls in love with him. They embrace.
Peter Finch & Terence Stamp … but I suspect the wellie-boots are a rehearsal shot.
William Boldwood approaches Troy and offers him large sums of money to go away … then large sums of money to marry the enraptured Bathsheba. Troy reveals that he and Bathsheba got married that morning. There is a drunken party with a huge thunder storm outside. Troy does nothing nor do the men, but loyal Gabriel climbs the hay ricks in thunder and lightning to try and save her hay and corn. Bathsheba runs out and helps.
Troy leaves the cock fight … atmospherics
Troy is gambling on cock fighting and demanding money for more gambling from Bathsheba. Poor Fanny turns up, heavily pregnant. Troy sends her off to the workhouse saying he’ll meet her in the morning. When he arrives she and the newborn child are dead. The coffin is sent to Bathsheba’s house where she once worked. The loyal Gabriel intercepts and rubs out the chalked “and child” on the coffin lid so Bathsheba won’t see it, but Bathsheba opens it and sees the child.
Durdle Dor: Sgt Troy is about to swim out to sea
Troy is distraught with remorse and tells Bathsheba he never loved her. He goes to the beach, leaves his clothes and swims out to sea. I thought Terence Stamp brave here, from the camera angles he swims a long way from shore and is a long way from the camera boat too.
Once the legal six years are up after Troy went missing, Boldwood wants Bathsheba to marry him.
The circus: Troy as Dick Turpin. Will the ginger moustache fool anyone?
They go to a travelling circus, where Troy is playing the highwayman Dick Turpin. (You do think he might avoid the area), We think Bathsheba realizes who it is in spite of his wild and comic attempts at disguise.
Boldwood with gun.
Boldwood throws a big party at his house, and insists Bathsheba wears a ring and is about to announce their engagement when Troy walks in. Boldwood shoots him dead. We see Boldwood in a cell awaiting execution, listening to them assembling his coffin
The loyal Gabriel tells Bathsheba that he must leave Dorset, and will go to California. She persuades him to stay, we go full circle to the beginning, and they marry.
It’s a happy ending
Soundtrack
The folk sounds authentic … just the one instrument usually, mainly flute from Gabriel. While characters in the film appear to sing, on the OST album they have the actual singers. Isla Cameron sang The Bushes and Briars and The Bold Grenadier. Trevor Lucas (Eclection, Fairport Convention, Fotheringay., The Bunch) sang Tinker’s Song and I Sowed The Seeds of Love. Dave Swarbrick, later Fairport Convention, is the fiddler for the party in the barn.
DVD / Blu ray discs …
The current blu-ray
But this is how we watched it … a free covermount DVD from the Daily Mail years ago., we’ve watched this one three times. it’s excellent quality too. Yours for 10p in a charity shop.
ULIE CHRISTIE … see also:
The Fast Lady (1963)
Darling (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Petulia (1968)
THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …
A Taste of Honey (1961)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Performance (1970)
Peter Viney's Blog 