Day Thread of Every Merchant Ivory Film

[Header Image: Stock photo of a guy who’s about to force you to watch 44 movies of wildly varying quality.]

Hey, folks. It’s me, your friendly neighborhood emotionally repressed butler, DourifLeMoko.

A few years ago I was rewatching Remains of the Day, my favorite emotionally repressed butler movie, and thought to myself, “I wonder what other dry films about hiding pain I’m missing from the people who made this?” I’d seen a few Merchant Ivory films, especially the renowned and well-known ones, and I was also aware that the Criterion Collection related HVE had put out most of their catalogue on DVD a couple of decades ago. I put a pin in the thought, but have recently been in a mood to watch a lot of movies, so I suddenly decided to watch everything they ever put out.

After a suggestion made in the OT by Reda, and because Merchant Ivory are generally known for making period films, I decided to watch them in chronological order based on the year the film was set. So what exactly was I watching?

James Ivory and Ismail Merchant made or produced 44 films under the Merchant Ivory banner, one of the most distinctive and enduring collaborations in film history. The two were also long-time romantic partners, maintaining a private but widely known relationship that lasted until Merchant’s death in 2005. The most common creative team (with 22 films) was James Ivory directing a script by their frequent collaborator, novelist and screenwriter, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, from 1963’s The Householder to 2009’s City of Your Final Destination.

After that you had James Ivory directing various films with different writers and then later on the producer Ismail Merchant started directing as well. They also produced a number of films that they didn’t have any creative involvement in. Overall, their widely celebrated films (such as A Room with a View, Howards End, and The Remains of the Day) often explored themes of class, sexual repression, and cultural clash, particularly within British and colonial settings. 

Back to the project’s viewing order: over half of the films were period pieces, starting with the earliest set film Jefferson in Paris (actual garbage) and then catching up to present day (at the time of release) with The Householder 25 films in.

10 of the 44 were rewatches for me, some were fairly challenging to track down, and some I decided to watch multiple times feeling that I wasn’t quite absorbing it (a problem you run into when you watch a lot of similar things back to back to back). A few were short films, but most were feature length, and I watched three films that were connected to the main 44 on top (Ivory-scripted Call Me By Your Name, satire Stiff Upper Lips (thank you SadClown), and Stephen Soucy’s Merchant Ivory). I finished in about two months.

I loved doing it, even though the films were so dry that I’m still taking fluids on doctor’s orders.

While there were some godawful stinkers in the pile, there were some happy surprises as well, and this is on top of some of my favorite period films. I’ll be here all day if I review and give my thoughts on every individual film, so for now I’ll just post my top ten in chronological order based on when it was set (with films I hadn’t seen before this project in bold):

Film Title / Year Set (Director, Screenwriter, Year of Release)

The Bostonians / 1877 (James Ivory, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, 1984)
Maurice / 1905 (James Ivory, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, 1987)
A Room with a View / 1905 (James Ivory, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala,1984)
Howards End / 1909 (James Ivory, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, 1993)
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge / 1931 (James Ivory, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, 1991)
The White Countess / 1930 (James Ivory, Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005)
Savages / 1932 (James Ivory, George W. S. Trow and Michael O’Donoghue, 1972)
The Remains of the Day / 1937 (James Ivory, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, 1993)
The Five Forty-Eight / 1954 (James Ivory, Terrence McNally, 1979)
Roseland / 1977 (James Ivory, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, 1977)

Films that I liked a lot but didn’t make the top ten: The Night of Counting the Years; Feast of July; Autobiography of a Princess; The Europeans; A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries; Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie’s Pictures. The rest I felt neutrally about (13 films), mostly didn’t care for (6 films), or was glad to only have to watch once (11 films).

If you have questions about my thoughts on a specific film or want to know something I didn’t say here, just let me know. See below the thingy for the full list in the order I viewed them along with my lovingly gifted personal ratings [full credits are not given for the films, I’m mostly interested in noting the involvement of the primary Merchant Ivory players].

In any event, thank you for listening to me talk about these for weeks and weeks!