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The Jewel in the Crown (25th Anniversary Edition) Starring: Peggy Ashcroft, Charles Dance, Art Malik $31.99 Features:
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Editorial Review:
Adapted from Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet, The Jewel In The Crown focuses on the human and cultural entanglements of the men and women struggling to adjust to the drastic changes brought about by the end of the colonial regime. From Gandhi's call on the British to "Quit India" to the birth of an independent nation, this magnificent eight-part series is brought to life through intricate storylines and a sterling British cast including Academy Award-winning, legendary British actress Dame Peggy Ashcroft (A Passage to India) and Emmyr nominee Charles Dance (Alien).Filmed on location in England, Wales, and India, and rich in mid-twentieth-century historical detail, this best-selling series narrates a stirring finale to the British Empire in India.
The Jewel in the Crown, adapted from Paul Scott's Raj Quartet novels, tells the story of the final years before India gained independence in 1947. It is rare for a filmed adaptation to successfully preserve the richness and complexity of a great novel, but this epic miniseries succeeds both as personal drama and historical panorama.
In 1942 Daphne Manners, a naive young woman newly arrived in the town of Mayapore, befriends Hari Kumar, an Indian-born journalist who has spent most of his life in England. With his dark skin and educated English accent, Hari feels like an outsider wherever he goes, but Daphne understands his plight and they become romantically involved. Their developing relationship is jealously observed by local police chief Ronald Merrick, a man haunted by his own demons. When the lovers are attacked in the gardens of the ruined Bibighar palace and Daphne is raped, Merrick seizes his opportunity, pins the crime on Hari, and has the young man jailed. Distraught, Daphne flees to her aunt's home in Kashmir, where she dies giving birth to a half-caste child. The focus then shifts to Sarah Layton, a young Englishwoman who becomes fascinated by the story of Daphne and Hari, and who will have her own encounter with Ronald Merrick.
The events in the Bibighar gardens become a symbol of the violent struggle for Indian independence, and other symbols--Daphne's bicycle, a length of butterfly lace, a picture of Queen Victoria on an Indian throne--appear and reappear, linking people and events. This helps to give coherence to the plot even as it spans five years and expands to include many characters whose lives intersect in complex and unexpected ways.
With a huge cast and breathtaking location photography, The Jewel in the Crown was an enormous undertaking when it was made in the early 1980s. Twenty years later it has lost none of its power, and it remains one of the best films ever made for television. --Simon Leake
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0 
Great story, defective set: 
I wonder if anyone else's copy was defective. Disk 4 was a duplicate of Disk 3. Couldn't even watch the end of the series.
A Jewel of a Series!: 
If there was ever evidence of perfection on the small screen it's here in "The Jewel In The Crown". It's been 24 years since I last saw the show and I'm here to report that time has polished this jewel to a magnificent shine. Don't deprive yourself of experiencing drama at its finest. The DVD transfer may not be up to today's standards but the acting is beyond reproach and Tim Pigott-Smith gives a performance of a lifetime. Quite simply, it doesn't get better than this.
Old VHS quality, unfocused story w/too many characters: 
Yes, I agree that this transfer is terrible at best. I was shocked with the old VHS quality of this, there wasn't much effort to clean it up.
The second point I have is that only the first 3 hours based on the first book in the series seems focused and comprehensible to me. After that I found myself seeing too many characters that come and go and it not really continuing the story after that, what happened to the baby or the main heroines Indian lover? I think devoting 14 hours to just the first book...more info
A mere two cents............:
A few years ago, seeing an advertisement for a low cost tour package of London and a number of other locations in UK, I very nearly took advantage of its great price.
While I was mulling over the idea, one of the things that came into my head was how much I would enjoy a side trip to visit Sarah Layton, whose location is revealed in "Staying On", another DVD people who loved the Jewel should find and watch. It was only some hours later that I remembered that Sarah was a fictional character, so real did...more info
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