I Capture The Castle.

By Alison December 28, 2004 2 Comments 1 Min Read

"There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love."

Dodie I Capture The Castle was on BBC 2 this evening. Was there ever a more shambolically decadent film? I just love it, not only because of its gentle coming of age storyline, but because in all its shabby glory, the film is a feast for the eyes. The pea green lacy laundry! The tin bath! Rose’s powder pink dresses, and Topaz’s robes!

Dodie Smith more famously wrote The Hundred and One Dalmations, but it was with I Capture the Castle, her first novel, originally inspired by her homesickness for England (and of the eccentricity of the English there can be no better study) that Dodie first came to the world attention. Opening with the lines " I write this sitting in the kitchen sink", the book is a love story set in 1930s England following 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain, and the fortunes of her eccentric family, struggling to survive in a decaying English castle. Both funny and whimsical, it is a total delight and to my mind the film does not fail to do the book justice.

Who hasn’t dreamt of living in a castle?

View the trailer here…

Icapturethecastle

Or buy the film here…

2 Comments

  1. Melissa says:

    I love this book! Have read it so many times…and the film "was" good but you're right….doesn't do the book justice.

  2. Melanie says:

    I read this book afew years ago and fell in love with it, then the film got released and I was over joyed. I have it on dvd, but havnt watched it in a while, but now I feel the urge to capture the castle.

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