The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

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!"

My 2006 review is below, but for the small band of us crying out for this to be on DVD, I found it! Only I can't include the info here--it's against IMDb rules--so Google the title + Chamberlain and look among the results. Yippee!The review:This broadcast positively transported me when I saw it on PBS, and I would buy it in a minute if someone had the good sense to issue it on DVD.There's a version starring Kenneth Branaugh (much of whose work I love) that's very watchable, but it doesn't reach the heights this one does.If you've never seen or read anything by Chrisopher Fry, as I hadn't, you'll be astonished that it was written for 20th century audiences. It's a serious look at life disguised as a romantic comedy set in medieval England. The cast is uniformly excellent, and Chamberlain and Atkins are magical. (After playing Dr Kildare on American television for several seasons, Chamberlain went to Britain to study and work; he ended up playing Hamlet in a major production. This performance shows what he can do when allowed to.)They say life's a comedy to those who think..."The Lady's Not for Burning" is a comedy *for* those who think.

Take a world-weary mercenary, and throw him into a household of mayor-uncle, convention-bound mom, two lusty, empty-headed sons, a servant, a naive girl just out of the convent and an accused witch about to be burned, put them in a setting of about 1400 AD and stir, and you get this wonderful work.The elegant poetic language carved its way into a romantic nineteen year old's brain when I first saw this. Later versions just fall flat compared to this performance, partly because so much text was cut out of the later version I saw (a movie with Kenneth Branagh in it) that it lost its internal rhythm (yes, I READ too, and actually read the play later.) Oh, for it to be released on video or DVD!!!

One of the great poetic drama works of the 20th century, this has been televised three times; in 1954 with Christopher Plummer, Richard Burton(from the original Broadway cast that starred John Gielgud)and Mary Ure, this version and a later one. Would that this one could be on DVD. Fry has been trying to get this one done again definitively. It is known for the paraphrase Margaret Thatcher made of it when she said, "The lady's not for turning!" Set on a sunny rainy afternoon,and evening in the Middle Ages,the play is a whimsical-serious parable of the aftershock of World War Two, the meeting of a soldier wanting to end it all and a lovely young woman accused of witchcraft and sentenced to burning. It's for people who love language and the interplay of rich comic characters (the townspeople are hysterical).