Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

each adaptation is a new lecture of book. and revelation. the revelation of this Les Miserables remains Richard Jordan. at first sigh, he does a great job. at the second , he creates a character who use the traits of Jean Valjean to remind the values of a profound metamorphosis. because the lead character of the novel is the bishop Myriel. he is the maker of the war new rules between Valjean and Javert. and Claude Dauphin has the science to give the precise portrait of the noble priest. Anthony Perkins choose a frozen Javert. not a bad idea but the character remains, in many scenes, only a sketch. the film has the virtue to be a nice introduction before reading of book. and this does it real good.

Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" is widely regarded as one of the greatest books of the 19th century. The reasons why literary critics consider it so is because the sprawling story covers a huge number of themes. Mans inhumanity to man, faith, redemption & just about every facet of human nature both good & evil. This 1978 television adaptation of the book is, for my money, the best. The central character is Jean Valjean who is superbly played by Richard Jordan. He is originally sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. His sentence is increased to life after several escape attempts. After serving 19 years he does succeed in escaping. Anthony Perkins is fantastic playing first a senior prison officer at Toulon where Valjean is incarcerated & later the cold-hearted policeman Inspector Javert. It was Alfred Hitchcock who cast him as Norman Bates in "Psycho" after he noted his ability to look shifty & suspicious as an actor. Those same acting qualities make him perfectly cast as Javert. He is not really evil but rather just ruthless about carrying out what he considers to be his duty. There are many overly-officious people like him around today usually referred to as "jobsworths". Really evil people are represented by the Thenardiers who maltreat a young girl Cosette put in their care by her poor prostitute mother Fantine, played by Angela Pleasance. She could hardly have chosen a worse couple.They eventually sell her off to Valjean after he changes his name to Mr Madeleine following his prison escape. He makes a solemn promise to her dying mother to take care of her daughter Cosette. She is not a prostitute out of choice, as the author makes clear, but because she is so poor & desperate she has nothing else to sell but her body. The Thenardiers realise how much Mr. Madeleine wants to take charge of Cosette & feigning their love & affection for her exact a huge price. The story is full of memorable characters like the kindly bishop Myriel who "buys" his soul after Valjean had escaped from prison & stole some of his silverware. After Valjean is caught he is taken back by soldiers under armed guard to the bishop who claims he gave them to him as a gift. He then gives him his two silver candlesticks telling him he forgot to take those as well. Valjean is deeply moved & from that moment becomes a changed man who resolves to do good in the world. He will treasure the candlesticks for the rest of his life as symbolic of his new-found faith in god. After changing his name to Mr. Madeleine, he becomes a successful respectable businessman in a small town. Javert later accepts a post as chief of police there. After witnessing an accident he sees Mr. Madeleine perform a feat of strength to free a man trapped under a wheel. He remembers that Valjean in Toulon prison had also shown great strength in releasing a man after a huge rock had fallen on him. He has noticed the similarity in looks between Mr Madeleine & Jean Valjean and begins to think that they may be one & the same person. The street-urchin boy Gavroche, a son of the Thenardiers, is another memorable character & a good sort. After an uprising in Paris he is killed by troops whilst bravely running around collecting ammunition from the dead bodies of some of the rioters for the use of those still fighting. Presumably, Victor Hugo is making a point that evil parents do not necessarily produce evil offspring. A great book was made into a great TV movie & I would recommend it to anyone.

Les Miserables (1978) *** (out of 4) Made-for-TV version of Victor Hugo's classic tale about Jean Valjean (Richard Jordon) who is sentenced to prison after stealing a loaf of bread for his sister and starving children. From this point Valjean's life goes through various ups and downs as he manages to escape prison and become an important figure but every step of the way he has to deal with police inspector Javert (Anthony Perkins). Over the past year I've been trying to watch a new version of LES MISERABLES every few months and it's become clear that it would really be bad if a director got a hold of this story and didn't make a good film. I mean, the story itself is so great that it would be really hard to mess that up and as long as you got two good actors in the main roles then there's really no point in delivering a bad film. This 1978 version is yet another good telling of the story and a lot of the credit must go to both Jordon and Perkins. I found Jordon to be extremely good in the part as he managed to handle every bit of development that the character goes through. I really enjoyed him early on as he slowly became a monster due to being abused in prison. Jordon did a remarkably good job playing this almost monster but he was also believable as the character slowly gets broken and turns into a respectable man. Perkins, who will always be remembered for playing Norman Bates, also delivers a fine performance. Obviously, the actor had no problem playing troubled people and I enjoyed the darker, more intense way he played Javert. John Gielgud, Ian Holm and Cyril Cusack have good supporting roles. Another major plus about this version are the costumes, set design and of course the sets. You have no problem feeling as if you're really in the days that the story takes place. The one negative thing I have to say about the movie really isn't the movie's fault at all. Originally this played over two nights on television and the total running time minus the commercials would have been somewhere around 150-minutes. The movie played theatrically in certain parts of the world with a variety of running times but sadly most VHS, DVD and cable versions out there now just run 123-minutes. That is the version I had to watch and it's obvious that some important parts of the story have been edited down. Obviously, the best way to view this film would to be getting a hold of an uncut version but if you must see the film and this shorter version is all that's available, it's still recommended.

Fine adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel that has been on my "must read" list for thirty years.As Inspector Javert, the cop who pursues escaped convict Jean Valjean through much of mid-1800s France, a stern and pitiless Anthony Perkins steps outside the box and sheds his neurotic "Psycho" persona completely. His expression is uniformly composed and utterly grim, his lips a thin dark line. Boy, is he intractable. Not only with anyone who breaks the law but with himself, if he believes that HE has broken the law.Wardrobe has decked him out with a hat like Napoleon's. And, well, Perkins is tall and gauntly and he has a long neck. And in his tight, full-length black overcoat with its high collar, and with his arms folded across his chest, his silhouette can't help looking an awful lot like Mother Bates' pacing back and forth in front of her upstairs window.The story: Richard Jordan is Jean Valjean. An out-of-work wood cutter with no family, he steals a loaf of bread, is captured, and sent to prison where he suffers under the scrutiny of Perkins as Javert. When he manages to escape, he finds renewal under the guidance of a bishop, and begins a life of doing good for others under a new identity. In five years he is made mayor of a small town. And, surprise, Javert is assigned to the same town as Chief of Police.Balked in his attempts to impose harsh punishment on the town's few law breakers by Valjean's generosity, Javert begins to suspect the mayor of being exactly who he is. But he doesn't exactly catch Valjean, because circumstances force Valjean to reveal his true identity in order to save another man falsely accused.Valjean slips off to Paris with the little orphan girl he's adopted and they find refuge in a convent. As the years pass, Valjean finds honest employment and still has a stash left over from his days as mayor. But it's always a problem, being a fugitive and dragging a little girl around with you, as Humbert Humbert found out. Little girls have a habit of growing up -- and they always fall in love with the wrong guy. Caroline Langrishe is Cosette as a young lady. She's a knockout but not very bright. Instead of falling for a doctor or a lawyer or a wheeler/dealer like Donald Trump, she is in the thrall of a handsome young revolutionary. And, wouldn't you know it, Javert is sent to that district of Paris as an undercover operative to spy on the same revolutionaries. It gets a little twisted after that. And I don't think I want to reveal the resolution, although medical discretion allows me the observation that Javert remains unforgiving to the very bitter end. Well, kind of.I can't really compare it to the novel because I've never read the novel, but I have seen two or three other cinematic versions of the story and they're pretty similar. Frederick March played Valjean in a 1930s version, if I remember, and he was extremely good in the role, and in the role of the Valjean lookalike who is falsely accused. March managed to turn the hapless innocent into a man with brain damage.More recently, Liam Neeson, whose looming, hulking presence and irrepressible nose always make him unforgettable, was quite believable as Valjean. And Geoffrey Rush was an unimpeachable Javert, bringing much more to the role than the simple story would suggest. I mean, Rush was really tormented in a way that no other Javert has ever been. I won't say much about Claire Danes as Cosette because, although I am deeply in love with her, she's never responded to my perhaps too-graphic emails. What does that do for your operational definition of "unrequited"? There are a couple of nicely done tense scenes of action and suspense in the current version. Not so much the shoot out at the barricades but the scene in which Richard Jordan hoists little Cosette up onto a rooftop and barely escapes the determined Javert and his Myrmidons.Overall, this is about as good as the other versions I've seen -- and that's pretty good. Some of the credit, of course, should probably go to Victor Hugo, the Paddy Chayevsky of his day.