Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice. 1940 MGM/Turner Entertainment.
Starring: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Maureen O'Sullivan, Edna May Oliver, Mary Boland, Edmund Gwenn
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Available from Amazon as a single DVD, or as part of the Motion Picture Masterpieces Collection.

A loose 1940 film adaptation based on Jane Austen's novel of the same name. The costumes were recycled from the production of Gone With the Wind, according to Greer Garson.

Two new handsome, eligible bachelors have just arrived in town: Mr. Bingley (Bruce Lester), and Fitzwilliam Darcy (Olivier). This does not go unnoticed by Mrs. Bennet (Boland) and her two eldest daughters, Jane (O'Sullivan) and Elizabeth (Garson). Mrs. Bennet wants all of her daughters to marry suitable husbands, and she has high hopes upon encountering Bingley and Darcy.

At first, Darcy seems uninterested in Elizabeth, declining to dance with her at a ball, and then acting proud of it. She instead decides to accept a dance with Mr. Wickham (who told Elizabeth about how Darcy did him a "terrible wrong") in front of Darcy. Later on, while being pursued at another ball by a cousin of the Bennet family, Mr. Collins (Melville Cooper), Darcy helps her out of that fix, and asks her to dance. Unfortunately, he is appalled at the reckless behavior of Elizabeth's mother and younger sisters, and he leaves again, angering Elizabeth. The next day, she declines a marriage proposal from Mr. Collins, who then proposes to her best friend Charlotte Lucas (Karen Morley).

The paths of Darcy and Elizabeth cross again after a visit to Charlotte in her new home, and he proposes to Elizabeth, but she refuses, having heard a story told by Mr. Wickham about Darcy depriving him of money. He also has broken up the romance between Mr. Bingley and Jane, leading to a heated argument.

Elizabeth comes to realize that she does love Darcy after he tells her that Mr. Wickham had eloped with Lydia (Ann Rutherford), and he had also tried eloping with a fifteen-year-old sibling, Georgiana. Darcy also adds that Wickham would never marry Lydia. Elizabeth, however, fears she will never see Darcy again thanks to Lydia's antics, but Darcy has other plans, which involve righting some wrongs where Mr. Wickham is concerned.

Recommended.