Lillie
March 2008 Reviewed by: Charlotte Meyer Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Lillie is a 1978 BBC miniseries, 13 episodes long, covering the lifetime of Lillie Langtry, who was one of the most infamous and celebrated women of Victorian England. As a longstanding mistress of the Prince of Wales, she was both a scandal and a trend-setter -- a "P.B.," professional beauty. She was the subject of many paintings and sketches by such eminent artists as James Whistler and John Everett Millais. She was the object of desire of many wealthy men, who showered her with gifts of jewels, race horses, and yachts, for the pleasure of her company. One of her closest friends was Oscar Wilde, whom she publicly supported when he was tried for homosexuality.

As a very young woman she married the Irish gentleman Edward Langtry in an effort to escape her humble origins as the daughter of a dishonored clergyman on the island of Jersey. (Her adoring public called her the "Jersey Lily.") Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, although estranged from Edward, she could move as a married woman through London high society, maintaining her propriety. Through an affair with Prince Louis of Battenberg, she had one child, Jeanne Marie, who was raised thinking that Lillie was her aunt. (The Prince of Wales helped her seclude herself during the pregnancy.) She put her notoriety to use by going on stage and became one of the first international celebrities, touring Europe and the United States to wildly enthusiastic audiences. She took American citizenship in order to obtain a divorce from Edward and later married Baron Hugo Gerald de Bathe, 20 years her junior, whom she supported and kept at a distance, ignoring his many affairs. She died in 1929, with only her loyal maid in attendance.

In this production, Francesca Annis plays Lillie from adolescence to death bed -- a daunting role. She’s on screen almost all 672 minutes’ running time! Today they would split that role among three actresses, and her makeup team was stretched to their limits, presenting the same actress as a fresh-faced teenager and an overweight 75-year-old (whose latex chins are visibly seamed). Anton Rodgers, who plays her husband Edward, has a similar fate in the makeup room, morphing from a young sportsman to a balding old alcoholic in a strait jacket. Much effort overall went into the production. The cast is in the hundreds. The production values for the time are quite high. Although shot in the studio rather than in real interiors, as is more likely today, the sets are lush and accurately Victorian. The costumes are especially lavish. Lillie begins her public life with only one black dress, but her wardrobe expands in luxury with her celebrity. The script is daring for the 1970s. There’s plenty of promiscuity and explicit sex (with a royal!), and even some violence when one of her lovers starts walloping her.

The 13 episodes are on four discs in a box that carries this disclaimer: "Due to the age of these programs and the improved resolution that DVD provides, you may notice occasional flaws in the image and audio on this DVD presentation that were beyond our ability to correct from the original materials." Nevertheless, they’ve done a remarkable job, working from a video original as they have. These "occasional flaws" are not as noticeable as all that, perhaps because the look of the video is vintage with the stylized acting, the slow pacing of the script, and the look of the studio sets.

Frankly, I found getting through 13 episodes of Lillie tedious, but my perspective was changed when an old friend, a person of intelligence and discrimination, came for the weekend and spotted Lillie on the table. She remembered having seen it originally, so I popped in a disc for her. That was that. All plans for the weekend were forfeited. She got hooked and watched every episode. She found Francesca Annis to be captivating in the role. She crowed with delight at Lillie’s successes, booed her enemies, defended her when I charged Lillie with arrogance and selfishness. "She’s so beautiful she can’t be wrong!" She found the script "deliciously predictable" and of course adored Lillie’s elaborate, cleavage-revealing costumes. The acting, which I found stagey, she defended as suitable to the period. The string music of the theme, which I found schmaltzy, she loved, claiming that it was uplifting and hopeful, a match for Lillie’s optimism. It was as if the production had found its intended, rightful audience.

And you, my dear reader, you’ll have to decide for yourself!

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