Probably the best of the Lorna Doone efforts, the most loyal to the text, and with no added "romantic" material. The series was filmed in Bristol and on location and is more authentic than most of the others. No-one has ever come close to Jane Merrow's portrayal of Lorna, but she remained one of the most under-rated actresses in TV and movies. Producer Brandon Acton-Bond's committment to authenticity was a major factor in the high quality of this series.
3 Reviews
Classic BBC entertainment at Sunday tea-time
andrew-350-79761012 July 2013
Warning: Spoilers
I remember well this adaptation of a romance of Exmoor although I was only seven/eight years old at the time. I agree with the previous reviewer that Jane Merrow's lovestruck but helpless (in the power of the brutal Doone clan) Lorna was the character's definitive portrayal but Bill Travers's strong but sensitive gentle giant John Ridd ran it close. There were other very fine and memorable characterisations from the likes of Jean Anderson, John Bennett and Andrew Faulds (as Carver Doone) and these were indicative of the serial in that each member of the Doone and Ridd families stood out as an individual, as did such supporting characters as Jeremy Stickles, John Fry, Gwenny Carfax and Betty Muxworthy. My favourite episode depicted the Doone raid on the Ridd farm (the aims of the raid being abduction, arson and murder) and during which Carver Doone and his grisly gang (including Charleworth Doone, Phelps and Marwood de Whichehalse) met the unexpected resistance of Captain Stickles and his four troopers as well as the Ridds themselves! The Doones were quite unused to this sort of resistance from the country folk whom they periodically terrorised and I still remember Counsellor Doone demanding of a chastened Carver the reasons why the raid had failed to the extent of two members of the clan losing their lives and two more being hauled off to Taunton Jail. 'We knew nothing about the troopers!' was Carver's exasperated reply. My only regret at the time of transmission was missing the whole of Episode 9 as we were on holiday in a hotel at Littlestone that Sunday and (this being 1963) did not have access to a television set! From its title, this was the episode which tied in the action of the novel to its historical background: the unsuccessful Monmouth rebellion of 1685. It is very regrettable that all eleven episodes of this serial are believed lost as it would have made a first-rate DVD release fifty years after its transmission.
Recalling lovely Jane Merrow—and a rather pathetic fire
humboles13 September 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Two brief recollections stand out in my memory from the 1963 series.
First, Jane Merrow. She was so pretty, beguiling and vulnerable that, even though she was ten years my senior, I was totally smitten and longed to ride in to save the lovely Lorna!
Now the spoiler, though it matters not a jot as the series has been lost. There was a special effect required to show the burning of 'Doone-town' and a poorer thing I never did see, even by the lowish standards of early sixties British black-and-white TV. A tiny scale model of village houses sat as though on a table, shot as if it were a dark night and seen from a high spot, and resembling tiny lumps of balsa wood upon which someone had sprinkled pieces of burning fire-lighters that glimmered and flickered pathetically. Even as an 11-year-old boy, I was mightily unimpressed. It would take Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation team to understand how to make small-scale fires and explosions look reasonably authentic.
That the series is lost is a shame but, sad to say, the greater part of our 1960's visual heritage was scrapped by the BBC.
First, Jane Merrow. She was so pretty, beguiling and vulnerable that, even though she was ten years my senior, I was totally smitten and longed to ride in to save the lovely Lorna!
Now the spoiler, though it matters not a jot as the series has been lost. There was a special effect required to show the burning of 'Doone-town' and a poorer thing I never did see, even by the lowish standards of early sixties British black-and-white TV. A tiny scale model of village houses sat as though on a table, shot as if it were a dark night and seen from a high spot, and resembling tiny lumps of balsa wood upon which someone had sprinkled pieces of burning fire-lighters that glimmered and flickered pathetically. Even as an 11-year-old boy, I was mightily unimpressed. It would take Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation team to understand how to make small-scale fires and explosions look reasonably authentic.
That the series is lost is a shame but, sad to say, the greater part of our 1960's visual heritage was scrapped by the BBC.
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