This videotaped adaptation of Christopher Fry's 1948 play "The Lady's Not for Burning" was a PBS broadcast for Hollywood Television Theatre on Nov 18 1974, long revered as the finest filmed version to be produced. Richard Chamberlain as Thomas Mendip is the soldier seeking death rather than a life filled with dreariness, Eileen Atkins the comely Jennet Jourdemayne, falsely accused of witchcraft, both finding a kind of solace in each other's presence after a pair of brothers make unsuccessful passes at her. Thomas wants to be executed for the murder of Old Matthew Skips, happily confessing to the incredulous mayor (Keene Curtis) who refuses to take him seriously. Jennet's connection to Old Skips is to have turned him into a dog, a servant making the charge of witchcraft after hearing the cry of a peacock, assuming it was the devil himself. Prejudice in the Middle Ages has seldom enjoyed a better showcase, capped by the final reel appearance of the man in question, Old Skips, played by the venerable Shakespearean John Carradine, quite a hoot as the drunken sot whose absence is explained by his being away visiting his daughter: "peace on earth and good tall women!"
Review of The Lady's Not for Burning
