The Forsyte Saga

In the early years of the last century, John Galsworthy wrote nine novels, divided into three trilogies. "The Man of Property," "In Chancery" and "To Let" formed the first trilogy, which he called "The Forsyte Saga." The second group, "The White Monkey," "The Silver Swan" and "Swan Song" formed "A Modern Comedy." Finally "Maid in Waiting," "Flowering Wilderness" and "One More River" made up the last group called "End of the Chapter."



The first three books concentrated on the property-driven first generation Forsyte men, whose world was broken up by a beautiful woman called Irene, "a concretion of disturbing Beauty impinging on a possessive world," as Galsworthy puts it in his preface. But it is also a saga that brings us from the Victorian world in the 1880s up to the 1920s when the new generation finds new values.

Now this is very difficult stuff to reduce to a miniseries, but that is what BBC did quite successfully back in the 1960s and the television audience on both sides of the Atlantic went wild. For half a year, given a 50-minute episode each week for 26 weeks, they sat fascinated as they watched the fortunes of the Forsytes, man and woman, grasping, losing, growing older, having children who suffered from what their parents had done, some finding happiness at last, some settling for second best, but all interesting and very human. It is said that the idea of British miniseries based on famous novels is what prompted PBS to create Masterpiece Theatre to satisfy the demand. (Coincidentally, at the time of this writing, the very first Masterpiece Theatre, "The First Churchills," is due at the time of this writing to come out on DVD from Acorn Media!)

I am sure many of you have watched the first third of the new version of "The Forsyte Saga" complete with color, the obligatory scenes in bed, and horse manure carefully piled up in the streets of London. Be advised that the 1967 version is a studio version, with several location shots, in glorious black and white, with a cast that is simply hard to beat or even match, and a tendency to be wonderfully addictive.

I have viewed the DVD version on 7 discs released by Warner Home Video on the BBC label. (Yes, that is 1300 minutes in all, followed by 2 hours of spellbinding, often extremely funny, "bonus" material on the 7th disc.) If you prefer video tapes, the series comes in two sets: The First Generation on 6 tapes, The Second Generation on 7 tapes. They do not contain any of the extra material, so be advised. Technically, the picture has been beautifully restored except for a second here and there when there is a slight blur, perhaps 10 seconds worth out of more than 21 hours hours, and now and then the sound does get a bit fuzzy. In fact, I remember that being true when this series was first telecast, so that is no fault of this restoration.

The major stars are Eric Porter (Soames Forstye), Nyree Dawn Porter (Irene), Kenneth Moore (young Jolyon Forsyte), and a pretty actress who made her reputation in this series, Susan Hampshire. I cannot begin to list the rest, all of which you can catch during the end titles and much of which you can find on the Internet Movie Data Base. Porter plays to perfection the "unlovable" man who cannot understand why he is so; and as the story unfolds, his partial mellowing, as played by Porter, is an example to all "modern" actors.

In the book, Irene is seen only through the consciousness of the other characters, and as good as Ms. Porter looks as Irene, her acting is a touch wooden for such a catalytic character. Still she looks far more striking than her counterpart in the 2002 version.

Galsworthy has been compared with Thackery, but he does not quite have the sweep of that earlier author. Still, the scene at a party after a lawsuit in which the loser is attracting all the attention while the winners are being cold-shouldered by their so-called friends is both painful and telling. (In fact, if it makes you think of "Chicago," you can see how far ahead Galsworthy was in his estimation of how we treat "morality.")

Of course this is high class soap opera, but the production values are quite good for a 1967 studio production, the acting superb, and the dialogue a bit more intelligent than you will find in the afternoon on commercial series. This set, on tapes or DVDs, is a real "grabbit." It afforded me nearly 22 hours of viewing pleasure and will do the same for you.

`The Forsyte Saga' was a landmark in the history of television, not just in the UK, but globally. It was apparently the first miniseries to be produced anywhere. It was produced in part to start up the BBC's highbrow BBC2 channel. It was the BBC's most ambitious and expensive series up to that time. It was also the BBC's last major production in black and white, although plenty of color publicity stills were shot for it and BBC2 was intended to inaugurate color television in Britain. The series was originally aired in early 1967 on BBC2, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of author John Galsworthy's birth. It was so popular that it was quickly repeated on the more popular BBC1 channel. The series' popularity was phenomenal. The entire country seemed to rearrange its collective schedule around the show and the streets were empty when it was on. In the following years, the BBC would produce a slew of other period piece miniseries such as `The Six Wives of Henry VIII' and `Elizabeth R.' Britain's commercial network, Independent Television (ITV), got into the act with works like `Upstairs, Downstairs.'

`The Forsyte Saga' was exported and had a major impact abroad. Networks in other countries were soon producing their own period miniseries. `The Forsyte Saga' was the first television series from a Western country to be shown in the Soviet Union.

`The Forsyte Saga' was first shown in the United States in 1969 on the National Educational Television (NET) network and was its first prime time hit. It was repeated on NET's successor, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which was soon importing and airing similar series under the `Masterpiece Theatre' banner. A few years later, the commercial networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) were busy producing their own period miniseries like `Rich Man, Poor Man' and `Once An Eagle.'

`The Forsyte Saga' had a profound influence on the careers of its cast. It greatly boosted the fortunes of Eric Porter, Nyree Dawn Porter, and Margaret Tyzack, made Susan Hampshire the uncrowned queen of BBC2, and gave Michael York and Martin Jarvis their big breaks. The series gave Kenneth More his best role during the long and inexplicable twilight of his career. On the other hand, June Barry, Dalia Penn, and Nicholas Pennell all had prominent parts in the series, but were little seen in subsequent years.

In fact, the same can be said about the series itself. `The Forsyte Saga' hasn't been aired in the Washington, D.C., area in 20 or more years and is currently not available in this country on video or DVD. Its importance in television history is great and undisputed, but it's now spoken about more than seen.

I was absolutely delighted to have an opportunity recently to see the original `Forsyte Saga' on the ‘Ovation' channel on cable TV in Australia.

Forget the recent remake and after about ten minutes you'll certainly forget that this is thirty-odd years old and made in black and white. Maybe its high-class soap opera but even so its all class.

Truly a saga spanning four or five generations, the story is dominated by Eric Porter's Soames, the cold venal rapist who eventually commands our grudging respect and the truly beautiful Irene played by Nyree Dawn Porter, Soames' victim who later finds love. And then there's Susan Hampshire's pretty but totally selfish Fleur, drawing you eye whenever she's on-screen. Incidentally, Nicholas Pennell plays Fleur's husband as if he was Wilfred Hyde-White in My Fair Lady! There are many other major characters, all well portrayed and you'll really care what happens to them.

Even the make-up of the two Porters is worth a word of praise as they age convincingly.

A minor criticism I could make is the rather eccentric recording of the sound. The dialogue level soars and drops as if the microphones were concealed in flowerpots like the early talkies. Doors slam loudly and there are unidentified knocks and bangs in the background.

See this masterpiece of television if you can, I don't think it has been bettered.

To my knowledge this series was the first of its kind, and established the style and tone for all the programs which the term "Masterpiece Theater" now stands for. It is a mystery to me why it seems to have been forgotten completely, and why videos of the series are not available. Its successor, "Upstairs, Downstairs" seems to have usurped The Forsyte Saga's rightful place as the favorite high-toned soaper. Because it was the first, it should be honored for that reason alone.

This is one of the most influential series-and one of the best-ever made. It's the film that inspired the creation of PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre" and the birth of the U.S. mini-series and for it's almost 24 hours it's utterly spellbinding.

The series is adapted from six novels and three short stories by John Galsworthy about the Forsyte family of upwardly mobile Britishers in the late 19th-early 20th century, focussing in particular on the "Man of Property," Soames Forsyte (Eric Porter), who mistakes possession for love until he finally has a child, the spoiled yet totally captivating Fleur (Susan Hampshire). The adaptation is mostly faithful, though it opens with three episodes not in the original novels but dramatizing their backstory. In addition, Soames's first wife, Irene (the utterly amazing Nyree Dawn Porter), is more of a presence in the final chapters than she was in the later books.

If you ever get a chance to see this series (I don't think it's availabe on video at present), jump at it. The story is epic in scope yet quite moving on the personal level as Galsworthy traces the tortuous relationships of this large Victorian family in a manner that would make most soap opera writers green with envy.