The Secret Garden [DVD] [1975]

THE SECRET GARDEN [1975 / 2005] [DVD] [BBC Children’s Classic] The BBC’s Classic adaption of the Frances Hodgson Burnett’s most loved story!This enchanting children's classic tells the story of a spoilt, lonely orphan girl whose life is transformed by a secret garden.After her parents die, Mary Lennox [Sarah Hollis Andrews] is sent to live with her embittered Uncle's sad and gloomy house on the Yorkshire moors. Left in the care of the servants, the arrogant child soon befriends the maid’s brother Dickon and gets bedridden cousin Colin, and the three of them find new happiness in an overgrown hidden garden which weaves its magic on all who enter its walls. It is a touching tale of self-reliance, newfound laughter and innocent faith.This BBC production was originally broadcast in 1975. For the first time this DVD brings together all seven digitally remastered episodes to delight both young and old alike.FILM FACT: The BBC drama was nominated for a British Academy Television Award in 1976 in the drama/entertainment category, and in 1979 it was nominated in the children's entertainment series category at the 1979 Daytime Emmy Awards.Cast: Sarah Hollis Andrews, Hope Johnstone, William Marsh, Jennie Goossens, Jacqueline Hoyle, John Woodnutt, Tom Harrison, David Patterson, Lorraine Peters, Andrew Harrison, Richard Warner, Basil Clarke, Alison Lowndes, Gabrielle Hamilton, John Linstrum, Liza Kendrick, Jonathan Wall, Richard Beaumont, Tracy Mottau, Lysbeth Stevens, Binu Balani, Ray Dunbobbin, Clifford Cox and Charles CollingwoodDirector: Dorothea BrookingProducers: Anna Home and Dorothea BrookingScreenplay: Dorothea Brooking and Frances Hodgson Burnett (novel)Composers: Carl Neilson and Ronald BingeCinematography: John BakerImage Resolution: 480i and 1080iAspect Ratio: 1.33:1Audio: English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo AudioSubtitles: English SDHRunning Time: 200 minutesRegion: Region B/2Number of discs: 1Studio: 2|Entertain VideoAndrew’s DVD Review: ‘THE SECRET GARDEN’ [1975] was a wonderful mini-series of its time, that was in seven parts of half an hour each episode, and made by the wonderful BBC and adapted very close to the book by the author Frances Hodgson Burnett and despite being slightly drawn out and a tad slow, but at the same time it is a very enchanting Victorian drama for the whole family.Mary Lennox [Sarah Hollis Andrews] is a ten-year-old upper class English girl who lives in India with her parents. She is incredibly spoiled and generally disagreeable. Her parents, and pretty much everyone else too, get wiped out with cholera, but Mary Lennox is forgotten about and eventually found by a couple of British soldiers and gets shipped off to her uncle in Yorkshire.The Yorkshire setting is at Misselthwaite Manor, of Mr. Archibald Craven’s [John Woodnutt] home, is being looked after by the strict, no-nonsense housekeeper, Mrs. Medlock [Hope Johnstone], and Mary Lennox, in turn, is being looked after by the wholesome Yorkshire lass Martha [Jacqueline Hoyle], who is stunned by the girl’s inability to do even the simplest of things on her own, such as dressing herself.Eventually, being bored with the exceedingly gloomy and gothic house, Mary Lennox finds her way outdoors, and discovers the gardens and befriends a gardener and a robin, and Martha Lennox’s brother Dickon [Andrew Harrison], who cannot just keep a secret; and he seems to be able to talk with the animals of the moor. Mary Lennox also stumbles upon two great mysteries: a secret garden that’s been shut up for the past ten years, and a wailing, crying in the night.The secret garden gets discovered, obviously, and the crying turns out to be that of Colin Craven [David Patterson Mr. Archibald Craven’s sickly boy, who astonishingly enough is even more stuck-up and “contrary” than Mary Lennox herself! Question is, is he really as sickly as he and everyone else thinks he is, or is there hope for the would-be hunchback?It is a very heart-warming story and it’s all about finding life where you might think there is none. The only slight downside is the artificial sets, because the secret garden was built in the studio, but you have to understand that was the way the BBC did these types of dramas in 1975, plus the slow pacing of the story line and the stock shots of a robin on a tree branch who helped Mary Lennox find the secret garden. But a big plus was seeing the wonderful animals in their natural setting and adds to a wonderful ambient atmosphere and charm of this BBC drama min-series. What is also good about this DVD is that you can watch the seven episodes in one go or you catch each episode separate.DVD Image Quality – 2|Entertain Video brings you this wonderful and entertaining BBC mini-drama series. Shot in 1975 and the production suffers from some of the drawbacks of the medium in that period of the 1970s, because the outdoor scenes were shot in 16mm film and the interior shots were filmed with video tape, so you get different image resolution. Colours will seem rather flat with the outdoor scenes, detail is indistinct and black levels are lacking slightly. There is some murkiness to most outdoor scenes, and inserted film pieces stand out for their grain levels. There is plenty of flaring, whites are often slightly blown out, and some banding appears as does some ghosting and the odd dropout. There are a few minor compression issues. Most, if not all, of these are due to the original source, and are not things I could see easily corrected, but despite this, this is the best you will experience and of course being released on a DVD the image resolution will be slightly below par, but despite this, I am still pleased to finally have this classic BBC mini-series. Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.DVD Audio Quality – 2|Entertain Video presents us with just one standard 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio which is very respectable, with no major technical flaws. Dialogue is often excessively sibilant, which can sometimes now and again you get a slight hissing sound, and especially with the actress Hope Johnstone [Mrs. Medlock] where the voice sometimes suffers the most. The thick accents may also be a challenge for some people, especially for an American audience, but luckily you have the English SDH subtitles to help out people who are not adjusted to a very heavy Yorkshire accent. There is some background hiss due to the location recording. Despite these issues, there is nothing really unexpected here and this is the best you will ever experience and I do not expect an upgrade in the far off distance.DVD Special Features and Extras:Special Feature: The Secret Garden Gallery [1975] [480i] [1.33:1] [2005] Here you get to view 31 images from the BBC mini-drama TV Series ‘The Secret Garden.’ What you get to view is the English children's television producer and director Dorothea Brooking’s wonderful images of scenes from the film set that was given to Sarah Hollis Andrews during filming. What you also get to view is some black-and-white illustrated drawings by the production designer Guthrie Hutton, plus you also get to view some colour and black-and-white images of scenes of the actors rehearsing. To view all the images you have to click on the word NEXT to move to the next image.Special Feature: The Secret Garden Quiz [2005] [480i] [1.33:1] Here you get asked several questions about the BBC mini-drama TV Series ‘The Secret Garden.’ With each question you get given three options to guess the right answer and at the very end of the many questions asked, you are given a score on how many questions you answered correctly.Special Feature: Cast Interview: Remembering The Secret Garden [2005] [1080i] [1.33:1] [11:33] Here we get a very nice intimate thoughts from the main character actors who appeared in the BBC mini-drama TV Series ‘The Secret Garden, and the actors that are featured in this special feature are Jacqueline Hoyle [Martha], Andrew Harrison [Dickon], Sarah Hollis Andrews [Mary Lennox] and David Patterson [Colin Craven] and was filmed in The Geffrye Museum which is located in Shoreditch area of London. Here they have a set load of questions asked via specially printed cards. They are asked about their specific parts in the dramatization of the Frances Hodgson Burnett novel. They all give great insight into their character roles in The Secret Garden. They also get asked what was there favourite scenes they performed in, as well as their most memorable and funny scenes they were filmed in. They are also asked who were there favourite cast and crew members. They are of course asked have they ever received fan mail and ever been recognised from their character in ‘The Secret Garden’ then and now. Also have they carried on with their acting careers and if so what have they appeared in. Finally, they are asked how do they feel meeting up after 30 years since appearing in ‘The Secret Garden.’ So all in all this is a really nice special feature and seeing how far the actors have aged and they look really good and they feel very honoured to have participated and enjoyed appearing in ‘The Secret Garden.’Special Feature: Author Profile of Frances Hodgson Burnett [2005] [1080i] [1.33:1] Here we get an in-depth information about the author Frances Hodgson Burnett [1849 – 1924] and was a British novelist and playwright. Frances Hodgson Burnett is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885–1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911). Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1852, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the United States, settling in Jefferson City, Tennessee. There Frances began writing to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines from the age of 19. In 1870, her mother died, and in 1872 Frances married Swan Burnett, who became a medical doctor. The Burnett’s lived for two years in Paris, where their two sons were born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington, where Frances Hodgson Burnett then began to write novels, the first of which was published to good reviews was Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) and made her a popular writer of children's fiction, although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess. Frances Hodgson Burnett enjoyed socializing and lived a lavish lifestyle. Beginning in the 1880s, she began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her oldest son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1890, which caused a relapse of the depression she had struggled with for much of her life. Frances Hodgson Burnett divorced Swan Burnett in 1898, married Stephen Townsend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. A few years later she settled in Nassau County, Long Island, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery. In 1936 a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honour in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters, Mary and Dickon.Finally, ‘THE SECRET GARDEN’ was a brilliant BBC drama mini-series that is completely truthful to the book of author Frances Hodgson Burnett. The story is developed carefully and thoroughly, and presented in great detail. The characters are rich and a true reflection of what people were like in Victorian England and especially in Yorkshire and again are completely truthful to the very enchanting book. The story is developed carefully and thoroughly, and presented in great detail and the characters are rich and show us what life was really like in the Victorian era. The Yorkshire countryside is faithfully portrayed as only the BBC drama department know how. It is delightful to enjoy true Yorkshire accents which are an important theme in the book, especially if they are sometimes difficult to understand for an American audience. The secret garden is gentle and real, which over time really blooms. Yes there are some minor flaws where some lines are actually flubbed in a couple of the final episodes, but really they are inconsequential. If you have taken the time to read the book, then by all means take the time to see this delightful BBC drama, because you will be glad you did. I also am so pleased that the BBC decided to offer all seven episodes put back to back after all these years. Watching this on BBC DVD brought tears to my eyes because it is such a wonderful and authentic version of the book and it took me right back to the time when I first saw this BBC min-drama series in 1975. Highly Recommended!Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film AficionadoLe Cinema ParadisoUnited Kingdom

I have 2 versions now of this story and love them both. This one went into more detail I thought and has all the right emphasis on how to live a better, kinder life. Beautiful, well acted and very memorable. A great antidote to a troubled world. Enjoyed it enormously.

Happy with everything .v fast delivery too

So this is what Sunday teatimes were like when I was a kid, children. Assuming it was raining, and it probably was, you would quite happily watch half on hour of an unpleasant child mooching about in a big gloomy house with absolutely nothing happening except for the vague promise that next week you might find out what that strange crying noise coming from somewhere in the house is... and not even write to complain when it turned out (SPOILER ALERT) that it was just another, even more unpleasant child. We may complain that kids' tv is too shouty-shouty and hyperactive these days but this really is the other extreme - the camomile tea of TV to today's flourescent energy drink. In addition, the production like most BBC drama of its time, has a markedly stagey feel, as if no-one has quite got used to the idea that colour TV places slightly higher demands on the photography, where black and white might have lent it a certain atmosphere almost by default.So the four stars, really, are mostly for curiosity value if you're young, and nostalgia value if you're old. And the theme music, which in those days was always allowed to play out without interruption to give you time to readjust to reality.

This DVD is an excellent serial of The Secret Garden.It includes everything of any importance and conveys the "feel" of the book very well. The characterisation is very good; and the DVD tells the story well, about Mary Lennox, the spoilt young girl from India, who comes to live in a big, remote house in Yorkshire that has mysteries both inside and outside. She is intrigued by the mystery of the garden that seems to have no way in - and by the strange sounds of someone crying in the house - sounds no-one will explain. Mary solves these mysteries, and in the process makes friends with two very different boys - the animal loving Dickon; and Colin, said to be crippled - and even more spoilt than Mary. We see how the children interact with each other, and with the garden, so that all is changed for the better. It is a great story to read, and a great story to watch on this DVD.

In my humble opinion, the best version ever done of The Secret Garden. Just wonderful!

Good

This is, I think, one of the more dated examples of old school BBC drama. The child performances aren't great and sometimes it feels very stagey, but it still captures a sense of whimsy and childhood wonder, and it's a pleasant story about adolescence with a "treat others how you wish to be treated" message. Would watch with children