Spotting Jane
Alert Janeite Kathy spotted a Jane Austen reference in a classic film, and wrote to share it with AustenBlog readers.
I was watching the 1950 movie “Harvey” starring Jimmy Stewart. While he (Jimmy) was innocently waiting in the library as his sister attempted to commit him to the insane asylum, he picked out a volume of Sense and Sensibility from the bookshelves and proceeded to read the first sentence aloud.
August 8th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Finally delurking (been enjoying the blog quite a while) to add a couple of JA references from some recent television viewing. The comments area seems as good a place as any, as I don’t think it would really warrant a post on its own. Anyway, I recently borrowed “MI-5/Spooks” on DVD from the local library (I live in the US and I don’t have cable, so forgive me if this has already been mentioned ages ago) and in Season 4, there are a couple of references to Jane Austen. In episode 8 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/spooks/series4_ep8.shtml), Adam Carter has to go to a psychiatric center and he takes with him a copy of Mansfield Park (Jane also gets a shout-out in the dialogue, too, when the psychiatrist questions Adam’s choice reading material, he says by way of explanation, “She notices things.” Or something like that.) Then in the next episode, I think that Ruth Evershed is reading a JA book on the bus home. It might even be the same book (couldn’t see well enough). Maybe Ruth borrowed it from Adam. Or maybe the prop department didn’t want to spring for another book. If the TV show were real life, I could totally imagine Ruth as a Janeite, and Adam would borrow the novels from her.
Anyway, season 4 of the MI-5/Spooks wasn’t so hot (the latest incarnation of Capt. Wentworth aside, hee hee — although I dread the version of Persuasion that will air in the states next year, it looks terrible!), so imagining that the characters were all avid Jane Austen fans helped.
Thanks very much for the entertaining blog.