Throwback Thursday-Anne Of Green Gables (1985)

For many young girls, L.M. Montgomery’s classic novel, Anne of Green Gables is the literary gateway drug to more mature novels.

It’s no surprise that in 1985, the book was made into a television movie. Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert (Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth) are a middle-aged, never married brother and sister duo. With onset of time and age, they send for a boy to adopt and help around the farm. Instead they get an imaginative, dramatic and impulsive ginger girl named Anne Shirley (Megan Follows). Matthew quickly takes Anne into his heart as the daughter he never had, but Marilla is the harder nut to crack. Marilla agreed to keep Anne, but only if she acts as a young lady should (the key word here is but). That is where the fun begins and that is where Anne Shirley become Anne Of Green Gables.

For many fans of the books (myself included), this adaptation is the definitive adaptation. Megan Follows is Anne Shirley and will always be Anne Shirley. There is something iconic and wonderful about this adaptation. It holds up against the book and is everything a filmed adaptation of a book should be.

I absolutely recommend it.

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