IMDB: Euston Films 1983-I was going to say, "Never saw it...
...but that other thing, where he was in Russia, was great." -- but, judging from the Russian-sounding character names of everybody in [link|http://us.imdb.com/Details?0085077|"Reilly"] was that thing where he was in Russia! Yup, that must be the one I'm remembering -- I remember that it was set some time around the turn of the century, and the one on IMDB has Felix Dzerzhinsky in it, I see...
Unfortunately, it's so long ago since I saw that series (198X, where X<=7?), I can't remember what all it was about -- except a vague recollection that yes, it was great, and yes, Sam Neill was darn good in it.
Also, I've been deformed by having seen that otherwise crappy version of Ivanhoe far too many times -- Swedish state television corrupted their tradition of showing Ivanhoe on New Year's Day afternoon every bloody year, by switching to this version when it came out. Because it was in garish technicolour, I guess, and black-and-white felt so old in the early eighties... As if that could ever beat the [link|http://us.imdb.com/Details?0044760|1952 version] in the long run! That version had not only Liz Taylor as the Jewess-accused-of-witchcraft, Rebecca (can't remember what Joan Fontaine looked like as lady Rowena, but she can't have been as insipid-looking[*] as that porcelain-doll-looking wuss with her anime-figure-eyes in the 1982 version), but it had "I choose the axe" vs "I choose the mace and dagger"[**] for the big final fight (Rebecca's trial-by-arms) between Ivanhoe and de Bois-Guilbert! WTF is colour against *that*, I ask you???
[*]: Which Scott EXPLICITLY SAYS in the novel, she was not -- "lacking any insipidity", IIRC -- but that was really the SINGLE MOST DISTINGUISHING charcteristic of Lysette Anthony, anno 1982 ([link|http://us.imdb.com/Name?Anthony,+Lysette|IMDB], [link|http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Anthony,+Lysette|bio], [link|http://us.imdb.com/EGallery?source=granitz&group=0416-caa&photo=anthonyl.yse&path=pgallery&path_key=Anthony,+Lysette|photo]). Likewise for [link|http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Andrews,+Anthony|Anthony Andrews] in the title role; this "Blond British heartthrob" (Maltin) was really much better cast as the relatively poncy [link|http://us.imdb.com/Details?0084637|"Scarlet Pimpernel"] or, even more so, the all-out raving poofter Sebastian Flyte in [link|http://us.imdb.com/Details?0083390|"Brideshead Revisited"]. Feh -- no axe for him, oh no sirree!
[**]: And lovely sheet-metal shields that went "Bloinggg" and got all crumpled up as they pounded away on them with their axe and mace! Who cares about historically-correct wooden backing for non-crumpling shields, when all they whack them with are puny swords? Gimme an axe against a mace any day!
