Our Gentle Readers will remember that we posted about a student film inspired by Sense and Sensibility. Alert Janeite Amy let us know that the film will be available to purchase and download on iTunes by the end of January. The film has a MySpace page but the information isn’t on there. Amy took the initiative to e-mail the page proprietor and received the information about the download. (Such downloads are completely legal, by the bye; the filmmakers will receive the profits.)

There will be a Jane Austen Ball in Rochester, New York, on March 11, 2007, at the Cutler Union Ballroom. The ball is co-sponsored by Country Dancers of Rochester and the Jane Austen Society of North America Rochester, NY Region. For more information, visit the Web site or download a flyer (PDF) with information about the ball and a registration form.

We would love a report for the blog from anyone who attends the ball!

Alert Janeite Julia sent us a link to a short interview with actress/comedian Janeane Garofalo in New York Magazine in which she expressed her undying love for The Darcy.

She said she now spends her time taking copious notes while watching the History Channel, ruminating on the Big Bang Theory, finding Rachael Ray’s $40 A Day “horribly offensive,” and swooning over any and all incarnations of Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy. (“I’m not made of wood, people. Come on!”).

Oh, get in line, girlfriend.

(Julia also added in her note, “I actually worked with Janeane many years ago and the way I finally figured out how to spell her name was to always remember it starts with JANE.” HA!)

The Jane Austen Centre at Bath will be publishing an illustrated serial novella, There Must Be Murder, a sequel to Northanger Abbey, in its online magazine. A chapter will be posted each month until December 2007. And in case you were wondering, yes, the Editrix is the author of the novella.

A few weeks after their wedding, Catherine and Henry Tilney travel to Bath and meet old friends and new, including a family with some secrets. We don’t want to give away too much just yet…we’ll post a better description as the novella proceeds.

The first chapter, “Winter Pleasures,” has been posted. We have set up a special forum at Molland’s for those who would like to comment on or discuss the novella. We hope you enjoy this story of Henry and Catherine as they embark on another adventure in Bath!

The Guardian has an article about the boom in the British film industry, mentioning BECOMING JANE specifically.

Statistics from the UK Film Council reveal that £840m was spent last year, up by 48% from the £569m spent in 2005. Studios are also coming to Britain in greater numbers - inward investment increased by 83% to £570m. This comes after a change in the tax regime designed to facilitate low-budget homegrown productions and lure big-budget investment away from Hollywood.

Sometimes these things work…

The remaining 57 are UK co-productions and range from Richard Attenborough’s Closing The Ring, set in Belfast and North Carolina and starring Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer, to the Harry Houdini film Death Defying Acts and the Jane Austen biopic Becoming Jane (with an American, Anne Hathaway, playing the heroine).

…and as seen in this article, sometimes they don’t.

INSURERS have compensated a family whose 18th-century painting vanished during the filming of a Jane Austen biopic.

The €75,000 portrait, which depicted the family of Richard Chapell Whaley, disappeared from Newman House on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin last May.

Gardai questioned the film crew who were shooting the €12.5m movie about Jane Austen, ‘Becoming Jane’, at the time and made inquiries with art dealers here and in Britain.

But the painting, which was on loan from the Whaley family to University College Dublin, has not been located.

Well, that will cut into the old bottom line! The painting probably got packed away with the props. There’s a nice photo of Anne Hathaway in costume, though. We approve of her hairstyle. Speaking of, another correspondent (who did not leave his or her name) sent a link to a new Becoming Jane still (top left corner).

…for the low, low price of £895,000.

FLOORBOARDS salvaged from the ruins of Steventon Manor, in the home village of novelist Jane Austen, are laid in the barn conversion that creates a spectacular drawing room to a listed property.

[. . .]

A two-storey extension added in the 19th century includes the Victorian or Georgian-style dining room, with exposed beams and a large fireplace, and the incorporation of an original barn.

The barn is now a drawing room that Dreweatt Neate describes as “spectacular”.

As well as the Steventon Manor floorboards, there is a heavily beamed, vaulted ceiling and an open fireplace.

These would have been the floorboards of the manor house when Jane Austen lived there; the manor was rented by the Digweed family. The current Steventon Manor, next door to St. Nicholas’ Church, is of more modern date. The original manor was demolished in the 1970s, we understand in a state of extreme disrepair.