Casanova

Excellent Dennis Potter's first tv series views the legendary swordsman far from romantic anecdotes of yore.

Frank Finlay's portrayal is of a deeply flawed libertine; a proto sex addict, whose conquests appear to make him depressed rather than fulfilled.

This arrogant fop's technique seems to be to bamboozle his gorgeous marks via a mixture of half-truths and flowery monologues which render them confusedly flattered enough for him to achieve his ends.

Don't expect to see flowers or chocolates; the provocative 60's still loomed large in 1971 when the BBC was still trying to challenge viewers rather than preach to them.

Told through a series of typical Potter flash-backs, flash-forwards and premonitions as Casanova festers in a rank gaol for minor misconducts, Finlay is absorbing. Aware of his mental health issues, he is nevertheless compelled by nature to continually do what he does, while finding no inner peace - the opposite, in fact.

In other words: this libertine finds no liberation in his behaviour but is condemned to repeat it.

'Casanova' would be thought edgy if it was aired now (and there's ZERO chance of that!). It loses steam towards the end of the 6 episodes, but when it does fire, it does so with energy and no little venom.

This was shown on KCET (LA's PBS affiliate) in the early Eighties. The production values and acting were excellent. I have part of it on tape. I loved this series on a lot of levels and wish that it was available on DVD or VHS.

Frank Finlay was outstanding in the title role. If you get the chance, watch this miniseries. It explores the sacred and profane, censorship and societal mores. It also follows the exploits of a sensualist scoundrel. Casanova may have been a sexual sociopath, but he had panache!

it was considered risque at the time of its production, but I've viewed my copy recently and it has traveled well. Watch it from "cover to cover" if you get the opportunity.

To the person who asked if the above mentioned was available in video. It is, from Amazon.com, UK. The only problem is that it's playable only on foreign DVD players, as it's in the PAL format, not NTSC, for North America. Here's hoping one day that they'd make a version for sale in the U.S.. Hope it helps. It was certainly better than the "TV movie" with Richard Chamberlin (I think I might have his name wrong). They never showed it in St. Louis (as I had to see it as a fuzzy copy from a tv station in Illinois and I never got to see it all from the beginning). I would hope that when, and if, it would be released for sale, in the U.S., that they would release it in the full (uncut) version, as many times, they don't (as will feature films).

This highly entertaining masterpiece is now available on DVD (region 2). Admirers of writer Dennis Potter's other masterpieces, "The Singing Detective" and "Pennies from Heaven" (the British TV series, not the Hollywood remakes) should not hesitate to buy this long forgotten gem, which goes far beyond all the known clichés of Casanova to create a penetrating and intense portrayal of a man who is at one and the same time a prisoner of his obsessive desire and liberated by them. To achieve this, Potter has Casanova's time in a terrifying Venetian prison cell (just a few pages in his ten volume autobiography) form the center of the action, with flashbacks and flash-forwards to other episodes of his life. This jumping back and forth in time was new and experimental in 1971 and proved too much for audiences then, but it works brilliantly from today's point of view, creating suspense and adding new layers of meaning, just like it does in "The Singing Detective". Frank Finlay, once the Iago to Olivier's Othello, delivers the performance of a lifetime as the haunted hero, backed by a supporting cast of the usual British high caliber. Although it does show occasionally that this is a 1971 video production, as a whole it's quite simply beautiful to watch.

All the quality we have come to expect of BBC mini-series, and the production values are stunning. Cinematography was excellent, as was the acting. The networks were gunshy in north America, even PBS. I was working for a station in Toronto which bought the rights and ran it in prime time. The full frontal nudity got a fair bit of attention, but was tasteful, and never offensive.