All Creatures Great and Small (1975)

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Although I've seen a good number of eps from the classic TV series since childhood,I for some reason have always missed the chance to see the original big screen version of James Herriot's books. Looking at the flicks being shown over X-Mas/New Year,I noticed a screening of the movie in among animated titles,which led to me going down to the farm.The plot-1937:Recently passing his exams, newly qualified veterinarian James Herriot goes oop North for a job at Siegfried Farnon's practice in Yorkshire. Welcomed into the practice,Herriot soon finds himself getting stuck into taking care of all creatures big and small.View on the film:Filmed "Oop Yorkshire" director Claude Whatham & cinematographer Peter Suschitzky breath in the rural air with a misty atmosphere putting the viewer down on the farm. Allowing the viewer to see the hard work that vets do in a (mostly ) matter of fact manner, Whatham wonderfully brushes up the late 30's setting,lit by the cosy lack of modern machines which give the movie a fairy tale way of life. Threaded from two of Herriot's books,the screenplay by Hugh Whitemore flips the pages at a rapid pace. Whilst this stops the film from feeling dry,it also causes for there to be no feeling of a real friendship growing between the vets,due to any tantalisingly small moments being quickly skipped over. Joined by the charming Simon Ward as Herriot, Anthony Hopkins steals every scene he is in as the pipe smoking Farnon,thanks to Hopkins giving Farnon an excellent manner at home with the simple things in life,as the vets help all creatures,great and small.

Being a fan of the series I found a copy of this extremely difficult to find film while I was watching the series and was very happy that I was able to watch it.I would have liked to see is that it was a bit longer and covered a bit more of the life of James Harriot. A very young Anthony Hopkins was superb as Siegfried and Simon Ward and Lisa Harrow as James and Helen made the movie very entertaining. I would have loved to see Simon Ward as James in the series, nothing against Christopher Timothy.The series features Tristan much more than the movie and this would be the only drawback I could find about it. Tristan is one of my favourite characters in the series.

The movie is nice, not world class, but shows you a splendid young Anthony Hopkins as Sigfried Farnon.This movie never reaches the level of the series (which were started after, because of(?) this movie) It was a bit too hasty, no real depth in the characters, most things you have to deduct from conversation. The real Herriot lovers are waiting for the explosions of Sigfried, especially if you ever saw Anthony Hopkins in action, but he is surprisingly sedate almost throughout this movie. I would recommend the books, and the series, but this is an enjoyable movie non the less.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, at great surprise. I would not recommend it to fans of the action genre but everyone else should take a look, especially animal lovers, don't think for a second you need to have read Herriot's book. The actors themselves provide all the entertainment with their dialogue (except the bits with the animals and farmers). It is actually an emotional film and makes you involved with the characters. A word of warning, since it covers a significant amount of time without making it that clear don't leave the room. I haven't made this film sound as good as it is but believe me it's great. Simon Ward and Brian Stirner are very good as James Herriot and Tristan respectively but Anthony Hopkins steals every scene he's in (as always) as Siegfried, who constantly confuses Herriot by changing what he said the night before and manages to insult all the women. The scene where he is chatting up his girlfriend is a classic example of how NVC can be better than actually saying something. So long as you know what you are expecting this film is excellent.A great British classic, watch it.