Posted by Peter Hyland on May 07, 2012 at 04:56:20 user Peter_H.
I have just watched (on UK ITV3) the 1974 S&A film, directed by Claude Whatham. I have seen it lots of times before, but not for some years now. I first saw it when it was released, in those distant innocent days before TARS and all the Ransome ‘heritage industry’ started up. What would I, with jaded cynical eyes, think of it now?
No worries. The film was, and still is, brilliant. It’s all been said before, but I particularly noticed the camera angles, the chosen landscape backgrounds behind the children as they spoke, the cut-aways, and the music – just right, never intrusive. Magnus’s boat looked just fine.
As to the children, Sophie Neville as Titty seemed still by far the most convincing, speaking her lines with natural intonation and animation. It’s her film, really. But I was, for the first time, also impressed with Lesley Bennett as Peggy. Less so with Kit Seymour (Nancy) whose speech was a little too refined – she announced herself as “Nancy Bleckett” - a minor quibble. As regards props, they usually got it right. At the houseboat party, Captain Flint (Ronald Fraser, who did not irritate me as much as he used to) ‘played’ a diatonic button accordion, rather than a piano accordion which would have been quite wrong.