I am excessively diverted!

"Dearest, lovliest Elizabeth, what the heck is going on here?"

I am re-reading the magnificent Pride and Prejudice for the who-even-knows-how-many-th time, so I’m also watching the film adaptations. (BBC version: pure bliss. Knightley/MacFadyen version: did they even read the book?) But I had never seen the film made in 1940. I knew a bit about it and was certain I’d hate it.

First off, the costumes were a mess. The clothes were 30 years off, and in some cases 130 years off. In one scene, Miss Bingley was actually draped in sequins! Another found her dripping in diamonds at an afternoon garden party. I settled into my sofa, fully prepared to gleefully roast this total disaster. But then something happened. Early in the film, there is one hilarious scene which finds Mrs. Bennett and Lady Lucas (each desperate to exhort her husband to visit Mr. Bingley immediately in order to better claim him as a future son-in-law) engaged in a frantic carriage race, shrieking at their respective coachmen:

“Pass them, Higgins! Pass them!”
“Overtake them, Jennings! Overtake them!”

And with that, they had me.

I am mortified to report that this movie utterly charmed me, which is most inconvenient as I was quite prepared to despise it. I was so eager to be spiteful and malicious about its lack of parity with the novel, but the complete lack of parity is what saved it. This film throws off the novel text with reckless abandon, which allowed me to enjoy it as an old movie that just happens to share a title with one of my favorite books.

Indeed, there is almost no resemblance to Austen’s masterpiece. There is a character named Lizzy and one named Darcy, but they bear no likeness to Austen’s creations. I found Darcy to be kind, polite, and charming throughout (quite a feat considering he’s portrayed by Laurence Olivier, an actor whom I loathe) and Lizzy was rather rude and not at all witty, which could have been accomplished so easily by simply having her speak Jane Austen's dialogue. She’s also played by Greer Garson, looking every bit of her 36 years. Ludicrous. Jane is a bit of a manhunting schemer, Mary is quite hilarious, and Wickham has a facial hair situation going on that makes it impossible to take him seriously. And horror of horrors, Lady Catherine turns out to be quite awesome and a bit of a Cupid for our “young” lovers. Yeah, I… have no idea.

And oh, the American accents! The opening titles make it clear the story takes place in “old England” yet none of the principles speaks with a British accent, despite the fact that the two lead actors are actually British. Olivier sounds more like a Czech immigrant. Perhaps Darcy came to Pemberley by way of Prague.

But! There is so much hilarity to be enjoyed. In addition to the carriage race, we get to see Kitty and Lydia doing shots (shots!) with the officers, leading to Kitty being drunk as a freshman at a frat party; Colonel Fitzwilliam in a kilt, sporting a moustache that rivals Wickham's in terms of sheer hilarity; and one truly horrifying scene in which Mr. Collins (here, the librarian at Rosings) stands before the Bennett family, declares his intentions of taking one of the Bennett girls as his bride, and proceeds to look them over like cattle at a county fair.

As a connoisseur of human folly herself, I think Elizabeth Bennett would be excessively diverted by this spectacle. I know I was.