List Price: $14.99You Pay Only: $13.49 You Save: $1.50 (10%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: USTINOV,PETER
EAN: 0717951005618
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Miramax
Manufacturer: Miramax
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Miramax
Region Code: 1
Release Date: September 12, 2000
Running Time: 94 minutes
Sales Rank: 46585
Studio: Miramax
Theatrical Release Date: 1997
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Editorial Review:
Description:
This irresistibly sexy comedy tells the outrageous story of a beautiful girl and her unlikely romantic awakening! Pretty young Emily has just reached the ripe old marrying age of 22, and her obnoxious family has already matched her with un upper-crust stiff. Emily, of course, feels nothing ... until she happens upon a strapping young peasant who unleashes all kinds of strange new feelings within her! As this funny, clever, and endlessly entertaining motion picture unfolds, a string of comic events is set into motion that force everyone to deal with some decidedly lusty new emotions!
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - A Room with a View of the Passage to Howards End, If You Please
"I'm a beautiful, young virgin in Italy. I want my sexual awakening and I want it now!"
So says Emily (Georgina Cates) shortly after arriving in Italy in this parody of veddy British films, particularly those of Merchant and Ivory. Along for the journey is Aunt Agnes (Prunella Scales), Emily's near-imbecile brother Edward (Samuel West), Edward's college mate Cedric (Robert Portal), and the hapless servant George (Sean Pertwee). Oh, and if you didn't pick up the Merchant-Ivory connection right away, the writer gave the surname "Ivory" to Emily and her family.
Poor Emily. At the scandalous age of 22 she remains unmarried and Aunt Agnes is having none of it. Enter the insufferable Cedric who is fond of citing the poet Homer and is given to criticizing everything and everyone. Naturally Aunt Agnes is willing to overlook Cedric's eccentricities, but Emily is less than thrilled. Enter lower class worker George. George rescues Emily from drowning and is rewarded by being insulted, then forced to go to Italy as a servant.
It is in Italy where Emily's desires begin to blossom in a most alarming manner. Without giving anything away, there is a scene where Emily drinks from a fountain that manages to be vulgar and funny at the same time. Later, after Emily's hilarious attempt to seduce Cedric, she begins to cast her eye upon the luckless George. Believing that Emily is carrying his child, George begins to woo her, but Emily resists his charms.
Finally, in ... Read More
Rating:  - Hilarious parody of Masterpiece Theater Victorian Dramas-
I've recommended this comedy to friends and co-workers more than any other movie, and watching it on New Years Eve has become a tradition for myself when I have company over to view the city's fireworks that can be seen from my windows. Everybody who sees it, loves it. Peter Ustinov & Prunella Scales will be familiar to almost everyone over the age of 35, but the entire cast is effective and the young heroine, Georgina Cates, is perfect in the lead. One good line after another, the humor has to be bawdy since the parody is of those uptight, repressed, kill-joys that have graced our TVs and movie theaters in countless Masterpiece Theater, Merchant/Ivory productions, and others portraying the mid to late 1800s. I love many of these, and Daniel Deronda, Our Mutual Friend & the updated Forsyte Saga our among my absolute favorites for repeated viewings. But I can't help but laugh along at their absurdities, as well, and this well-written comedy is spot-on.
Rating: - British Aristocracy -- or Hazards of inbreeding
This has to be one of the funniest movies I have seen in a very long time. It is broad -- very broad -- satire of the British Upper Class in 1908. It has the barest of plots but that doesn't detract from the movie because it was never intended to be anything other than what it is -- an exaggerated view of the British Aristocracy. While the dialog is clever much of the humor occurs in the background or in the visuals so the viewer really must pay attention to the details. For example the pub where the lower classes hang out in England is called "Scum of the Earth" but the bar in Italy where the manservant goes is called "Scuma del Tierra". There are many anachronisms -- mostly in the idioms but there is a phonograph and a LP record. Plus one of the funniest scenes is the water fountain in Italy -- the penis is circumcised which was not characteristic of Romans or even current Europeans. The director uses a great deal of misdirection and double entendre and one of the best examples is the scene where the boys are fanning themselves and talking about their "strange feelings".
The movie gets off to a great start as we watch the boys ignore the conductor who is asking them to pay for their tickets. This refusal to acknowledge that the working class even exists sets the tone for the entire movie, which is hysterically funny, especially if you have any knowledge of how the British Upper Class acted at the turn of the century. Peter Ustinov has a small part which he walks through ... Read More
Rating: - she has ghosts from Belgium.
This is a wonderful light-hearted satire of Merchant Ivory films. I love them and I loved it. The sparks between 22 year old Emily, who is being pressured to marry, and George, a representative of "the scum of the earth" carry the movie well, as does the romance between aunt agnes and cedric's uncle. Prunella Scales is so unlike her character in Fawlty Towers you need the credits to prove to yourself that she is the same actress. The characters are convincing if extreme.
Rating: - The only movie my husband required me to buy.
We saw this movie for the first time on PBS and thought it was hysterical. It's only one of two movies that he can watch over and over again. It's also the only movie he can watch and not fall asleep. It's a little racy, but that's why it's so funny. The whole stoic, staid British never show emotion; makes the movie great. The main reason they go to Italy and India isn't to marry off Emily or prevent her association with George, but because they're driving the butler crazy!!
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