I found this to be a most compelling adaptation of Hawthorne's book, with a literate script and good performances by the leads (Meg Foster, Kevin Conway, and John Heard) and many of the supporting players (Penelope Allen, Caroline Cava, and Josef Sommer). The primitive set design and costuming was an attempt to recreate the Salem of the period, and it appears fairly authentic, if my research of the period is any measure of accuracy. The fine music score by John Morris ("Young Frankenstein," "The Elephant Man") aids in creating the proper tragic, somber atmosphere of this classic story. On the negative side, the momentum sags in Part 3, the use of videotape over film (which the BBC did quite a lot of back then, too) fails to create the necessary atmosphere for a tale with underlying supernatural elements, and the child playing young Pearl is annoying--but so were most child performers of the period. This are minor quibbles, however, and I still found the production thoroughly engrossing.

Okay, you know the story. In the puritan New England, a beautiful lady gets impregnated by a (who else)priest. Lady refuses to tell the name of the father and wears a scarlet letter A (for adulteress). The priest, however, goes on living a life where he is considered to be super pious. Beautiful novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, ghastly adaptation. It drag so long that I stopped caring at the end.

I saw this series when it first premiered with much fanfare on PBS in the Boston area 20 years ago. I was in my early teens, but the story moved me and has endured as a favorite. I was delighted to see that this version had finally come to video a few years ago, and was as beautiful as I remembered. I get so much more out of the dialogue now, and although the effects are as cheesy as you might expect from a PBS miniseries from over 20 years ago, the music is still affecting, and the performances excellent. It's gorgeously filmed in and around New England, and the "making of" shorts included on the video are a nice touch. As I recall, the story is very close to the original -- a notable difference being the color of Hester Prynne's eyes, which were black in the story, but are light blue in this version. I mention this because Meg Foster's eyes stand out to give her an other-worldly look which is very effective. This miniseries is way up there on my must-see list!

I love Hawthorne's novel. And this miniseries is VERY faithful to the novel. But if what you're looking for is a faithful rendition of the book, don't waste your time with this...JUST READ THE BOOK. This film is pointless: it brings absolutely nothing new to the tale, and it's not at all interesting to watch. The actors evidently have no idea what to do with the script; perhaps they have trouble expressing feeling with archaic dialogue, or perhaps it was because of incompetent direction. The director plods through most of the film with basic camera shots (there's nothing wrong with that, of course, so long as what you're watching is interesting [which in this case it is not]); at a few scattered points, however, he makes an attempt to do something artsy - like when Dimmesdale whips himself and when Hester is standing on the scaffold in the nocturnal scene - but these shots not only look out-of-place with the rest of the film but one gets the impression that they were put there just to show off rather than to really say something. Perhaps they (and the rest of the film) would have come off better if the production values had been more than nil, which I can only assume they must have been.