Vanity Fair

So happy to find this series is now on DVD. I bought a copy on Amazon. Watching it again I find it does have a kind-of 1980s 'feel' to it, but it's still the best adaptation of the book around. Eve Matheson is perfect as Becky Sharp.

Vanity Fair starring Eve Matheson as Becky is one of the few film adaptations of a classic novel that allows you to be unashamed that you did not read the novel. Matheson's seemingly heartless, relentlessly maneuvering Becky is a characterization that compels us to cherish the art of film acting. She is hands down the quintessential Becky Sharp. Thackeray's subplots are well executed here with remarkable actors such as Sian Phillips in a tour de force performance as Miss Crawley.

Class consciousness is at center stage here. Everyone seems to be aspiring for a coveted spot in a society that never promised anyone a perpetual rose garden. Some think themselves secure enough in that esteemed class to condescend to amuse others whom they secretly hope will never truly take a place beside them in the register of the "haves". It is with the utmost degree of mortification that the "secure" wake up in an unguarded instant to find themselves hastily uninvited to social events, and stashing away their best silks and laces against the inevitable rap of the creditor on the front door. Beg, borrow, and try not to steal to see this Vanity Fair!

Thank God I taped it way back in 1987...agonizingly editing out the commercials, so that I had a "pure" copy of the original. (Little did I know then how a "copy of a copy" would degrade so.) I'm re-watching it now, going through an ancient copy of the book as I do so, and am newly impressed with not only how faithful, but how entertaining the production is. I may get to watching the Reese Witherspoon version some day, but only as a light amusement - no one could get the full gist of this book in 2-1/2 hours. Sorry to say, my 18-year-old tape has rather more degraded...good enough for me, but not good enough to offer anyone a copy of a copy of a copy. Let's hope A&E chooses to rebroadcast it at some point.

Why oh why isn't this brilliant adaptation available on video or dvd?? WHY???!!! I saw it way back in '87, and have yearned for it ever since. I don't understand why it was never released on video or dvd -- it was SO good, and I would pay good money to have it. Sigh.

I agree with the other comments here. This would probably have to be the best adaptation of a book ever to be done to screen. And it is better than the 1998 series. The characters especially are very true to the book, especially Becky, Osborne, Rawdon and Lord Steyne. They even looked like their descriptions in the book e.g. Becky was small and sandy-haired, George Osborne proud and large-whiskered. By the end of the series I found it very hard to decide whether Becky was "innocent" or "guilty", which was the exact way she was portrayed in the novel. This series caught the colour, richness and comedy of the book, and captured Thackeray's disdain of most of the characters. As said in another comment, if you don't feel like ploughing through the book, watch this series, that is if you can find a copy of it........