Small, smart, redheaded, scrappy, and imaginative, Anne Shirley has been winning hearts and minds ever since Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery introduced her to the world in 1908. The character was so immediately popular that Montgomery penned seven sequels to Anne of Green Gables over three decades. Anne has kept the tourism industry in her home of Prince Edward Island booming, particularly among Japanese fans. Anne is big in Japan thanks, in some part, to a 1979 anime version of Anne of Green Gables. In fact, Anne has inspired a number of films, TV shows, and stage productions.

• 1987 Anne Green Gables Online

But outside of Japan, one adaptation in particular—the 1985 Canadian Anne of Green Gables mini-series, starring Megan Follows and directed by Kevin Sullivan—struck a nerve. At the time, the CBC production was the most popular TV program to ever air in Canada. As it was re-broadcast in the U.S. (on PBS and, later, the Disney Channel), the four-hour event and its 1987 sequel, Anne of Avonlea, became instant classics—winning Emmy and Peabody Awards, reinvigorating interest in the L.M. Montgomery novels, and inspiring a generation of women to emulate the brainy, ambitious, hot-tempered, and kind-hearted Anne.

1987 Anne Green Gables Online

We are now in the midst of another Anne boom. The always-popular ginger is the subject of several new film, stage, and TV adaptations, including a gritty reimagining by Breaking Bad alum Moira Walley-Beckett that was first broadcast by the CBC and will air on Netflix starting this Friday. But this new version will have to work as hard as the fictional Miss Shirley herself to win over a generation raised on the warm and cozy version. We’ve rounded up a group of writers who grew up on the 1980s version to explain why that Anne—and the gentle books she springs from—are such a hard act to follow.

LOVE AT FIRST SLATE

Anne of Green Gables is jammed full of wonderful moments that have never left me over the mumble-something years since I first read it—Diana Barry getting wasted accidentally on currant wine; Anne re-enacting The Lady of Shalott with geographically disastrous results. But none are more viscerally satisfying than when our heroine gets fed up with classmate, general dreamboat, and (spoiler!) future spouse Gilbert Blythe teasing her during lessons and cracks him over the head with her slate. I think of Anne every time a strange man on the street tells me to smile. Young women are so often taught to make boys feel comfortable, even when they’re being total assholes, and Anne just . . . doesn’t do that.

Her reaction is not half-hearted. It is not cutesy. Her rage is not cloaked in apologies for making anyone feel awkward. And she is not home to Gilbert’s apologies for a very long time. Her anger is legitimate and it is serious, and L.M. Montgomery treats it as such. (So does Gilbert, to his great credit.) Anne is allowed to reclaim her space and simmer about this. And while the image that sticks in your head is, obviously, Anne whacking Gilbert across the noggin, the message I took away from Anne of Green Gables as a kid wasn’t that I should smack people. It was that it’s O.K. to stand up for yourself when people treat you poorly, and that doing so isn’t going to make anyone who matters dislike you. That’s a powerful thought to put into a young girl’s pocket when you send her out into the world. Cat-callers, beware. — Jessica Morgan, co-founder of GoFugYourself.com and author of The Royal We

Amazon.com: Anne Of Green Gables - The Sequel: Megan Follows, Colleen. I had the same audio free experience during the previews before the movie. May 19, 1987 - Anne takes a teaching position at a girls school, and finds that her students are a handful. Part 1 of two.

KINDRED SPIRITS

I didn’t read Anne (with an “e” of course) of Green Gables. I devoured Anne of Green Gables. At the time, I didn’t understand why Anne’s commitment to her own intelligence, kindness, and disruptive “red hair” meant so much to me. Why watching Anne sit on a bench and stare toward her beloved best friend Diana Barry’s house, crying “henceforth we must be strangers living side by side,” made my heart soar. Now I realize that she was my first heroine. Anne was a principled young women who loved her friends, and her school work, and of course Gilbert Blythe. I felt so deeply for Anne and, in turn, for myself. I credit surviving my early teen years (I was five-feet-nine at the age of 11) to Anne of Green Gables. If she could do it, then I could too. (Also . . . I’m writing this while VERY drunk on currant wine) — June Diane Raphael, writer, actress, and star of Grace and Frankie

RACHEL LYNDE

Growing up in the 1980s South, I didn’t always know my place. My parents had raised me believing that my voice and ideas were as important as everyone else’s, even the adults’. That might be why I earned the nickname “Large Mouth Bass” from my fifth-grade teacher when I corrected her about something or another. So when I saw Anne Shirley lose her cool on Rachel Lynde after Rachel is rude as all get-out, I knew I had found a kindred spirit. How empowering to see a young woman speak the truth with passion and emotion, eventually even causing a change of heart and mind! My dad gave me a T-shirt that says “Large Mouth Bass,” and now I wear it with pride. — Lennon Parham, co-creator and star of Playing House

THE PUFFIEST OF SLEEVES

There’s so much to treasure in the CBC’s 1985 Anne of Green Gables series: for example, every time that dreamy Gilbert (Jonathan Crombie) looks at our hero Anne with love, amusement, and a proud kind of awe. But the moment that makes me tear up just thinking about it is when Anne’s elderly foster parent Matthew Cuthbert (Richard Farnsworth) gives her a light-blue dress with puffed sleeves. Anne has her famous obsessions—red-hair sensitivity; the Lady of Shalott; justice; dramatic phrases like “the depths of despair.” Puffed sleeves are another: fashionable, extravagant details on the kind of dress she’s never owned, expressing the glory and romance she dreams of, but, as a poor orphan, has never been able to have. While her foster parent Marilla (the wonderfully crabby Colleen Dewhurst) rolls her eyes at Anne’s apparent frivolousness, Matthew quietly comes to understand the important truths behind it, and he heads to the dry-goods store. But he’s still Matthew, awkward and shy; he buys a rake and several sacks of brown sugar from a pretty young clerk before working up the courage to say that he wants a dress. (“Puffed sleeves!” he whispers.)

Anne’s reaction to the dress—a lace-and-frills creation with puffs the size of hot-air balloons, which, when we see it now, at a safe remove from the 80s, threatens to steal the scene and perhaps our very souls—is one of rapture, along with shock and true love, and a tender gratitude that comes from knowing that she is finally seen, accepted, and cared for. The movie’s treatment of the scene is even more satisfying than L. M. Montgomery’s original, which sensibly incorporates the help of Rachel Lynde, the color brown (!), and waiting until Christmas morning. Here, we get to see Anne race out to the barn and embrace Matthew, while wearing the dress and possibly threatening to get it dirty, showing that the gesture is more important than the thing itself—and we can happily cry our eyes out. — Sarah Larson, roving cultural correspondent for NewYorker.com

ANNE SHIRLEY, WINNER OF THE AVERY

Anne Shirley was Hamilton long before Lin-Manuel Miranda—only without the music or Alexander’s tragedy. Like Alex, Anne wrote her way out. She wrote her way out of a life of mediocrity, she wrote her way out of Prince Edward Island (albeit briefly), and she wrote her way into the hearts of every person whose path she crossed. But unlike Hamilton, Anne never had to assume that she was the smartest in the room, because she actually was—and after realizing it, she never apologized, because why would she? As a kid watching Anne use her words and her writing to work her way through spelling bees and Avery prizes into Queen’s University, my own know-it-all tendencies seemed a little less extra.

Hell, even as an adult, I think of Anne brazenly building her dream life and feel motivated to get back to work and stop wasting time. Plus, she stopped for no man: while childhood me swooned over the cuteness of Gilbert (obviously), my 31-year-old self loves even more that Anne never slowed down so he could keep up. Instead, dude upped his own ante to keep himself in the game—he was well aware he also had to work. — Anne T. Donahue, writer/person/bona fide Canadian

A DECENT PROPOSAL

I saw Anne of Green Gables, the mini-series, for the first time when I was 12 years old. It was as close to a religious experience as I have ever had. I was covered in freckles, with a temper to match, and I never had a heroine speak so directly to my soul. I have committed almost every frame of those movies to memory, but one of the scenes that I try to rip off as much as possible when writing romantic scenes between myself and Keegan-Michael Key in my show, Playing House, is when Gilbert proposes to Anne for the first time on that bridge in the fog. Anne is right on the brink of womanhood, as it were, and all of her friends are pairing up and settling down. Anne has always known that she is destined for a life that is bigger than what her beloved Avonlea has to offer—but she has no idea what is ahead of her, and she is mourning the fact that the beautiful life, as she has known it, is about to change. When she says to Gilbert, “I don’t want any of it to change. I wish I could just hold on to those days forever. I have a feeling things will never be the same again,” my heart would just ache and ache, because I’ve always been desperately afraid of change.

For Anne, finding her Prince Charming is not what drives her—it’s figuring out who she truly is, and being brave in her choices and doing what scares her. But oh, when after she refuses his proposal and Gilbert looks at her, heartbroken and begs her to “please say yes” . . . I challenge you to find a hotter moment in all of olden-days history! The fog, the crickets, the pleading eyes, the bridge—absolute perfection. — Jessica St. Clair, co-creator and star of Playing House

PLUM PUDDING

Anne Shirley is pluck personified, and deeply theatrical, which makes it impossible not to love her. (In the musical, her over-the-top sung apology to Mrs. Lynde, which makes Rachel run off sobbing with guilt, is a marvel.) But she’s also the first female heroine I can remember whose mind was considered flat-out cool. And she never downplayed that; instead, she wore it with pride, which is a tough thing to do as a kid when so many people around you are coping with puberty by spitting out the word “nerd” like a bullet. Anne could recite poetry from memory, with dramatic perfection. In the series, she got carried around and idolized by cheering students for winning the Avery scholarship. Her cleverness and honesty and impulsivity attracted people more than her carrots did—even Gilbert. So, as much as I love the sounds of Marilla’s and Miss Stacey’s laughs when Anne shrieks not to eat the mouse-infested pudding, I can also close my eyes and hear Anne performing “The Highwayman” in her poetry competition, while Gilbert gazes adoringly and admiringly at her.

Y’all, he loved her for her brain. What better message for young kids is there? — Heather Cocks, co-founder of GoFugYourself.com and author of The Royal We

FLESH AND BLOOD

Like Pollyanna, Heidi, Pippi, and a number of other only-one-name-required literary heroines before her, Anne’s sunny outlook had a way of melting hard hearts. It was a trick she would pull off again and again with the likes of Rachel Lynde, Aunt Josephine Barry, Mrs. Harris, Katherine Brooks, and more. But Anne’s greatest conquest, of course, was Marilla Cuthbert. Soft-hearted Matthew Cuthbert was an easy sell, but Anne had to sweat in order to work her way into Marilla’s good graces. Colleen Dewhurst’s take on the stern Green Gables matriarch is most often remembered for her droll commentary, her exasperated eye-rolls, and her rare, warm, crackling laugh. But her usual composure is what make her complete breakdown over the loss of her brother, Matthew, so unforgettable. “It’s never been easy for me to say the things from my heart,” Marilla confesses, telling an inconsolable Anne that she shouldn’t think Marilla doesn't love her as much as Matthew did. The lesson Anne (and Marilla) imparted to me there is that a loving bond can be forged in even the most unlikely of places. Anne’s hard-won little family shrinks from three to two—but is all the stronger for it. — Joanna Robinson, senior writer for VanityFair.com

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Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel is a 1987 Canadian television miniseries film. It is a sequel to Anne of Green Gables, and the second of a tetralogy of films. The miniseries dramatizes material from several books in the eight-novel 'Anne' series by Lucy Maud Montgomery; they are Anne of Avonlea (Book Two), Anne of the Island (Book Three) and Anne of Windy Poplars (Book Four). As well, the TV film introduces several characters and issues not present in the books.

The miniseries aired in four hour-long installments, in May and June 1987, on the Disney Channel as Anne of Avonlea: The Continuing Story of Anne of Green Gables, and in two 150-minute installments, in December 1987 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and in March 1988 on PBS, as Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel.^[1] The film was also shown theatrically in Israel, Japan, and Europe as Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel and has been released on DVD under that title.

Learn astrology free pdf. Finally, in 2017, the miniseries was officially retitled Anne of Avonlea for its North American Blu-ray Disc release by Sullivan Films, as part of the Anne of Green Gables Collector's Set.

Synopsis[edit]

The film resumes the story of Anne Shirley, who at 16 had chosen to study for her college degree by correspondence in order to remain at Green Gables to help an aging Marilla, who has eyesight problems, look after the house and farm. Anne now holds a Teacher's License after completing the two-year post-secondary course at Charlottetown's Queens Academy in only one year.

Anne begins to teach at Avonlea School and has dreams of becoming a writer, but her story 'Averil's Atonement' is rejected by a magazine. Leaving the post office one day, Anne runs into Gilbert Blythe, who tells her that her best friend Diana Barry is engaged to Fred Wright. Anne is initially bewildered by Diana's decision, calling it impulsive. Meanwhile, in the last two years, Marilla's eyesight has greatly improved. Having regained her independence, Marilla encourages Anne to resume her old ambition of attending college.

At the clambake celebrating Fred and Diana's engagement, Anne and Gilbert wander off to a bridge, where Gilbert proposes. Anne rejects his offer, convinced that their marriage would be unhappy and unsuccessful. She runs off.

At Diana's wedding, Anne sees Gilbert with a young woman named Christine Stuart. Gilbert tells Anne that he and Christine are just friends, then offers to wait for her if there is any hope of them getting together. Anne rejects him again, and Gilbert suspects that there is someone else, despite Anne's assertion there is no person she cares about more than him. Anne returns to Green Gables and decides to look into the job her former teacher Miss Muriel Stacey offered her. Eventually, Anne decides to take this job as an English teacher at Kingsport, Nova Scotia Ladies' College in the hope that it will inspire her and give her something to write about.

Initially, Anne finds her new job to be difficult. A member of the local community — and member of the powerful Pringle family — had also tried for Anne's post and was rejected, causing resentment. However, Anne gradually earns the respect of her students, their families and her colleagues, including the severe and critical Katherine Brooke and the Pringle family. Anne organizes a play to raise money for the college, which is greatly appreciated. While teaching at the Ladies' College, Anne grows close to one student, Emmeline Harris, whom she tutors at Maplehurst, the house where Emmeline lives with her stern, controlling grandmother, Mrs. Harris, and her repressed Aunt Pauline (Mrs. Harris' daughter) who is a virtual prisoner in the house. Anne is able to convince the grandmother, a hypochondriac, to leave the house and go to a community picnic, and to let Pauline attend a friend's wedding overnight in another town, where she strikes up a romance. Her dream of being published is also finally achieved after she writes a series of short stories based on Avonlea inspired by a suggestion from Gilbert. Anne also succeeds in getting the spinster teacher Katherine Brooke to spend a badly-needed summer vacation at Avonlea, where she opens up her feelings to Anne.

Emmeline's widowed father Morgan Harris, a well-to-do traveling businessman, also proposes marriage to Anne, after Anne and Emmeline had visited his spacious house in Boston. Anne declines Morgan Harris' proposal and returns to Green Gables, where she learns that Gilbert is ill nearby with scarlet fever, having returned home from Halifax Medical School. Anne finally realizes her true feelings for Gilbert, and goes to visit him. After Gilbert regains his health, he proposes once more, and Anne accepts him with a kiss, declaring, 'I don't want diamond sunbursts, or marble halls. I just want you.'

Cast[edit]

• Megan Follows - Anne Shirley
• Colleen Dewhurst - Marilla Cuthbert
• Patricia Hamilton - Rachel Lynde
• Wendy Hiller - Mrs. Harris
• Frank Converse - Morgan Harris
• Jonathan Crombie - Gilbert Blythe
• Schuyler Grant - Diana Barry
• Marilyn Lightstone - Miss Stacey
• Rosemary Dunsmore - Katherine Brooke
• Kate Lynch - Pauline Harris
• Genevieve Appleton - Emmeline Harris
• Susannah Hoffman - Jen Pringle
• Mag Ruffman - Alice Lawson
• Bruce McCulloch - Fred Wright
• Dave Foley - Lewis Allen

Awards and nominations[edit]

• 2 Cable Ace Awards: Best Costume, Best Supporting Actress (Colleen Dewhurst), 1987
• 6 Gemini Awards: Best Dramatic Miniseries, Best Photography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Performance by Lead Actress (Megan Follows), Best Performance by a Supporting Actress (Colleen Dewhurst), 1988
• Silver Award - International Film and Television Festival, New York, 1987
• Best Family Series - TV Guide, 1987
• CFTA Award - Best New TV Production, 1987
• Chris Award - Columbus International Film Festival, 1987
• Honourable Mention - International San Francisco Film Festival, 1988
• Crystal Apple Award - National Education Film and Video Festival, 1988
• ACT Award - Achievement in Children's TV, 1988
• Golden Hugo Award - Chicago International Film Festival, 1987
• Gold Award - Houston International Film Festival, 1987

Sequels and spinoffs[edit]

Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story was released in 2000, and followed Anne Shirley as she embarked on a new journey, taking her from her home in Prince Edward Island to New York City, London, and into war-ravaged Europe.

Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning was released in fall 2008, and serves as a prequel to the previous films in the Anne movie trilogy. Set between two different time periods, Anne Shirley, now in her fifties, looks back on her early childhood before arriving at Green Gables only to uncover answers to questions that have plagued her throughout her life.

Road to Avonlea is a television series which was first broadcast in Canada and the United States between 1990 and 1996. It was inspired by a series of short stories and two novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, which Sullivan had previously adapted as Anne of Green Gables in 1985 and Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel in 1987. Many of the actors in the Anne of Green Gables movies also appear in storylines crossing over into the long-running Emmy award-winning series.

Several actors from the first two Anne films can be seen in both Road to Avonlea and the Anne of Green Gables, including Rosemary Dunsmore, Patricia Hamilton, Colleen Dewhurst, Jonathan Crombie, Jackie Burroughs, Cedric Smith, Mag Ruffman, Marilyn Lightstone, James O'Regan and David Fox.

Production[edit]

When Kevin Sullivan was commissioned by CBC, PBS and The Disney Channel to create a sequel he started by combining many different elements of Montgomery's three later books: Anne of Avonlea (1909), Anne of the Island (1915), and Anne of Windy Poplars (1936) into a cohesive screen story. Sullivan invented his own plotline relying on several of Montgomery's episodic storylines spread across the three sequels, He also looked at numerous other nineteenth century female authors for inspiration in fleshing out the screen story.

The film succeeded in re-popularizing Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst in their original roles. Sullivan also cast British veteran actress and Oscar winner, Wendy Hiller, in the role of the impossible Mrs. Harris, a character Sullivan specifically invented for the storyline, based on a composite of several matriarchs found in the series of novels.

In Canada, the film became the highest rated drama to air on network television in Canadian broadcasting history. This Sequel became known as Anne of Green Gables - The Sequel when shown around the world, and as Anne of Avonlea - the Continuing Story of Anne of Green Gables when it premiered on The Disney Channel.

ACE Award nomination[edit]

Megan Follows was nominated for an ACE Award in 1988 by the National Academy of Cable Programing in the Ninth Annual System Awards for Cable Excellence for Disney's 'Anne of Avonlea'.^[2]

Home Box Office led with 112 nominations for the ACE Award, or Award for Cable Excellence. Showtime got 48, Arts & Entertainment 33, and the Disney Channel and Cable News Network 10 each. 30 categories of the 174 ACE Awards were presented on a live broadcast on HBO on January 24, 1988. The other categories were presented at a non-televised dinner in Las Vegas on Jan. 22, 1988. The ACE awards were established after cable programs and performers were excluded from the Emmy Awards. The National Academy of Cable Programming^[3] was established in March 1985 to promote excellence in cable television programming.^[2]

Kevin Sullivan Anne Series[edit]

1. Anne of Green Gables - 1985
2. Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel - 1987
3. Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story - 2000
4. Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning - 2008

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

• The Official Anne of Green Gables Movie Website - The official website of Sullivan series of Anne of Green Gables movies
• Sullivan Entertainment Website - The Official website of Sullivan Entertainment. Includes information on the Anne movies and its spinoffs
• Road to Avonlea Website - The official website for Road to Avonlea, the spinoff to the Green Gables series of movies
• Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel on IMDb
• L.M. Montgomery Online Formerly the L.M. Montgomery Research Group, this site includes a blog, extensive lists of primary and secondary materials, detailed information about Montgomery's publishing history, and a filmography of screen adaptations of Montgomery texts. See, in particular, the page for Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel.

References[edit]

1. ^'Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel'. L.M. Montgomery Online. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
2. ^ ^ab'ACE Nominees Announced'. Houston. HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 2 STAR Edition. Associated Press. November 10, 1987. p. 7. Archived from the original on January 2, 2013.
3. ^'About the NCTA'. National Cable & Telecommunications Association. 1996. Archived from the original on 2007-12-14.