Before watching this film, I knew nothing of the story. It proved to be about Emily Fox Seton (Lydia Wilson), a young English woman who married for financial security. As it progressed, it became a suspense story, with Lydia Wilson being the best part of the production.The film includes beautiful scenery and settings. The music adds much to the film's mood. And the costuming is absolutely wonderful.The narrative might have enchanted Alfred Hitchcock, with its foreboding images and a sense of claustrophobia that surrounds Emily as her circumstances change and she begins to feel helpless within her situation.If you like beautifully filmed period pieces, I recommend this film to you.

I was recently shown this film by a friend and was very surprised by it, mainly because I am familiar with Frances Hodgson Burnett's other works: The Secret Garden and A Little Princess. I thought it a very strange story for her to have written and very out of character due to the suggestive content. I asked my friend if she had read the book, The Making of a Marchioness, and she said she had tried but found it very dry. As someone familiar with reading "antique" fiction, I decided to give it a try and I am very glad to have done so.The Making of a Lady is quite the travesty of the authoress's original story. The film is a highly romanticized, sexed up affair that really should never have been made, no matter the high filming quality and excellent casting. SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK AND FILM BELOWEmily Fox-Seton is a kindly, good-natured, tall, big-boned woman of respected name but no means. Much of the book is given over to her friendship and boarding with Jane Cupp and her mother Mrs. Cupp, respectable ladies with a room to let. She does not live on a seedy part of town and all who meet her find her very sweet. Lady Maria invites dear Emily who is so indispensable as a secretary of sorts, to her home in the country where she meets Maria's cousin Lord James Walderhurst. He is a gentleman in his fifties who is rather dry and wear a monocle but must marry and produce an heir to his fortune. Of all the women he has met, he finds Emily to be the most complying and understandable and weds her in great style and pomp, for after all, her family name is still highly acceptable.Lord Walderhurst's ungrateful heir apparent and relation Alec Osborn, his Anglo-Indian wife Hester, and her servant Ameerah come to live on the property in a beautifully fixed up house due to Emily's kind heart. Lord Walderhurst leaves as in the filmed version, for India and slowly Alec becomes enraged at all he will lose if Emily has a child. His own wife is pregnant and he desires to be his Lordship. Emily truly is pregnant and Alec plots murder through what appear to be accidents until Hester intervenes on a poisoned milk drink plot. Emily leaves with her very loyal servant Jane Cupp and Mrs. Cupp and goes to live in London to await the return of his Lordship. The Osborns return to India following the birth of a daughter and James returns to find his wife having born him a healthy son, though gravely ill herself. His presence revives her (and leads him to realize his love for her) and all is well. In India, an "accident" happens to Alec with a loaded gun and he dies. Generous Emily calls Hester and the baby back to England, and all live happily ever after.Apart from four very different murder attempts involving a ruined horse that Emily wisely does not ride, a bit of wood left at the top of the flight of stairs where she would walk, a broken rail on a bridge over a deep spot of water, and poisoned milk...one might not recognize the contrived and ruined story they dished out on film. The whole drugging with the milk and seduction of the maid Jane was pointless, as was his Lordship's undying love for Emily (no matter how touching). In reality he was married to her a good year before he realized his feelings could be love, as he is not sentimental. There is no passage between rooms, attempted strangulation, chaining of guns, brutal ride on a horse, murder of a servant and taking over of the house. Emily has the good sense to flee and take her loyal Jane with her and they completely removed her spine for this.I give it 4 out of 10 stars for 4 reasons:1 star for casting, which was well done. 1 star for costuming and sets, which were very accurate. 1 star for location filming. 1 star for filming quality.The other 6 stars are missing because this is not even Ms. Burnett's story. While I do not expect adaptations to be word for word from the original novels, I do expect some of the original plot and behaviors of characters to remain. They could have changed the names and places and put it out like that...I assure you nobody who has read The Making of a Marchioness would have recognized it at all. It is a great disappointment and I hope that the next time it is adapted it will be handled with as much care as the recently produced Little Dorrit.

THE MAKING OF A LADY is a 2012 ITV adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel, THE MAKING OF A MARCHIONESS. Being entirely unfamiliar with the story, I sat down to check it out, and ended up watching a television film of two parts.The first half is an entirely conventional romance between ANY HUMAN HEART's Lydia Wilson (keeping her clothes on this time around) and Linus Roache, playing almost exactly the same role as the one in ITV'S TITANIC shown earlier this year. The look, the feel, the script, everything is familiar and safe.The second half moves into unfamiliar territory as the plot gradually develops into a mystery/thriller, somewhere along the lines of a Wilkie Collins novel. I don't mind a bit of melodrama, but this ends up just as clichéd and predictable as the first half, albeit in a different genre. The would-be villains aren't menacing in the least and there's a pantomime feel to the whole production.In the end, I didn't buy it. I appreciate the thought and effort that went into this, and I always like new productions of the more unfamiliar classics, but THE MARKING OF A LADY has zero style and not much else to recommend it.

I admit, my first go-through I wasn't convinced. The plot seemed to rush forward with so much momentum that there wasn't a great deal of character development, and I found the characters themselves utterly obtuse. But, a second watch-through convinced me of what an enjoyable piece of Victorian drama this is -- beginning out with the makings of an unexpected love story (the love comes after marriage, in this case) and turning into a thriller. It won't win any awards but the costuming is gorgeous, the cast is surprisingly good (in spite of any romantic spark between the leads), and it's something I'll watch more than once. Try it, you may be surprised how enjoyable it is.