Jane Austen In Manhattan Details

Jane Austen In Manhattan

Director James Ivory brings the intrigue and guile of rival theatre companies to life in JANE AUSTEN IN MANHATTAN. At Sotheby's auction house in New York, a theatre producer and an ambitious off-Broadway director buy an obscure childhood play written by Jane Austen. Robert Powell stars as Pierre, an avant-garde director who becomes engaged in a heated rivalry with his former mentor and lover, traditionalist director Lilianna Zorska (Anne Baxter). While competing to produce different versions of the Austen play, the two also compete for the loyalties of a young actress, Ariadne (Sean Young in her first screen role).
The actual Jane Austen manuscript was sold at Sotheby's in London, and London Weekend Television became interested in producing the play--without reading it first. Merchant Ivory Productions, which had produced a film for LWT's THE SOUTH BANK SHOW two years earlier (HULLABALOO OVER GEORGIE AND BONNIE'S PICTURES), also became interested in filming the sight-unseen manuscript. However, after reading the work, screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala realized that the Austen play was not developed enough to be a film and instead used the acquisition of the text as the seed of an idea that ultimately became JANE AUSTEN IN MANHATTAN.

Starring	Robert Powell, Anne Baxter, Sean Young, Kurt Johnson
Director	James Ivory
Studio	ODYSSEY VIDEO
Run time	DVD: 1 hr 46 mins
Certificate
Genres	Drama
Language	DVD: English
Released	DVD: 25 Oct 2004 Production year: 1980
Format	DVD