The Admirable Crichton Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

The Admirable Crichton Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 19, 2021

Maybe it was the fact that J.M. Barrie was Scottish, and therefore may have been perceived as something of an "outsider" by some in London high society, that made Barrie want to gently poke British class consciousness in The Admirable Crichton. Even so, Barrie wasn't about to become a total provocateur, and so even he was on record as stating his play's ending, which returns things to their supposed "natural order" (i.e., the distinctions between classes very much intact), was done because Barrie was aware audiences of the time wouldn't accept anything else. If you were to reimagine Gilligan's Island with a whole slew of Howell types (Thurstons and Loveys), and with Gilligan as Howell's former butler now forced to spring into action after a shipwreck, you'd have the broad outlines of The Admirable Crichton, which was released for United States audiences as Paradise Lagoon (the title the credits of the film actually show, despite the cover of this release). The Admirable Crichton was a gigantic hit in London in 1902, running for close to 1,000 performances, though if the Internet Broadway Database is to be believed, the first New York mounting about a year after the London opening didn't fare nearly as well, closing only three months or so after opening. A 1931 revival on Broadway did even worse, barely running a month, with both of those Manhattan failures perhaps alluding to the fact that, while certainly understandable to everyone, the underpinnings of the plot are peculiarly British.

Henry, Earl of Loam (Cecil Oliver) is a somewhat crusty but well meaning Lord of the manor who wants to teach his three daughters Lady Mary (Sally Ann Howes), Lady Catherine (Mercy Haystead) and Lady Agatha (Miranda Connell), that, to paraphrase a term of art from the "colonies", all men are created equal, and so he arranges for an afternoon tea where all of Loam Hall's servants, including personal butler Crichton (Kenneth More), are invited to interact with the family and others in the landed gentry. Everyone from the three girls to the servants themselves are horrified by this imminent interchange, and no one seems to know quite how to act as a result.

When Lady Catherine invites a little bit (a lot?) of bad publicity when she gets arrested at a Women's Suffragette protest outside of Parliament, a hastily arranged "vacation" for the family (and servants) turns into a disaster when the ship's engines explode, leaving the former denizens of Loam Hall and a couple of other upper class hangers on who are courting the two younger daughters stranded on a deserted island with Crichton and lady's maid Eliza, who goes by the nickname Tweeny (Diane Cilento). Class structure is initially maintained, though it's obvious almost from the get go that Crichton's ability to survive in the wilderness is much more developed than any of the others.

The story is kind of split into "before" and "after" segments on the island, evidently mimicking Barrie's original segue from Act Two to Act Three, and as such, the evolution of interrelationships is almost presented as a given, rather than actually documented on screen. In the "before" section, the prevailing class order is maintained, even though it's obvious that Crichton is the only one able to really cope with the situation. When things start to get out of hand, with the Howell types wanting all their creature comforts while Crichton (and, to a certain extent, anyway, Tweeny) argues for more survival based options, the tables start to turn.

The "after" scenario is comprised of scenes that take place two years later, where the "normal" social order has undergone a rather radical upheaval. Crichton, now known affectionately as "guv", is unabashedly in control, and things are actually seemingly content for all. Longtime holdout (in terms of accepting Crichton as the de facto leader of the group) Mary of course finally lets her guard down, and, despite their class differences, she and Crichton engage in a bit of romance. Interestingly, Crichton is also at least somewhat solicitous toward Tweeny, which ends up playing into the denouement.

Just as things are getting really serious between Crichton and Mary (as in impending nuptials on the island), the ragtag group of shipwreck survivors are rescued, and the story returns to London. Already on the island, Crichton has reverted to his butler ways (that is, in fact, how the group is rescued), and the reestablishment of the accepted way of doing things seems to be firmly ensconced again, even if one of the courting hangers on has written a best seller which suggests he, and not Crichton, was the savior of the group.

The bittersweet finale sees Crichton emphasizing "duty" in the form of rebuffing Mary's importunings that they return to the island together, and this is where Barrie may have hedged his bets in terms of how an early 20th century British audience would have responded to a "mere" butler running away with a Lady. It gives the story a rather odd combination of provocative suggestions about upending the way things have always been done with a conclusion that seems to argue that "civilization" (as Crichton kind of disparagingly refers to it) simply won't permit any massive changes of that kind.

The Admirable Crichton Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Admirable Crichton is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. The usually reliable curators at Sony- Columbia may not have reached their apex with this transfer, and there are some passing issues with varying color temperature and clarity, though things generally improve as they go along and a lot of this presentation offers a securely warm palette and well supported detail levels. There are what are almost phasing issues in the early going where you can, for example, see flesh tones morph from relatively natural to almost beet purple and then back again. This particular anomaly starts to settle down, especially once things get to the island, though some of the island material features noticeable spikes in grain, especially against the more brightly lit blue skies. Some of the effects work in the film is almost laughably shoddy looking, and for some reason a bunch of scenes look like they were matted, which is understandable for the boating scenes seen in screenshots 17 and 18, but which is kind of a head scratcher for another sequence which sees all of the castaways save Crichton against a beach outcropping where I'm guessing maybe they discovered they didn't have proper coverage after primary location shooting had been completed (see screenshot 19). Taken as a whole, my score is 4.25.

The Admirable Crichton Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Admirable Crichton features a relatively spry sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track that does belie a bit of boxiness in the grander orchestral cues, but which is otherwise fluid sounding and nicely supportive of a lot of the ambient environmental effects that start accruing once things migrate to the island. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Admirable Crichton Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:04) is for the Paradise Lagoon version that screened in the United States.


• Isolated Score and Effects Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono and is accessible under the Setup Menu.

The Admirable Crichton Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Like its stage antecedent, the film version of The Admirable Crichton was incredibly successful in its native England (sorry, Scotland), though I haven't been able to track down any authoritative data on how well it might have done on this side of the pond. There is something unavoidably "British" about the whole story, but it's a fun and interesting dissection of expectations of class behaviors, even if its ending is a bit of a copout (it might be fun to do a reboot where Crichton and Mary thumb their noses at "polite society" and just do what they want). Video has some slightly iffy looking moments, especially in the early going, but is overall very enjoyable, and audio is fine. Recommended.