Merchant Ivory Collection (The Europeans / Quartet / The Bostonians / Howard's End)

Collection of four romantic period dramas directed by James Ivory. 'Quartet' (1981), based on the novel by Jean Rhys, is set in bohemian 1920s Paris where Marya Zelli (Isabelle Adjani), a beautiful young novelist, finds herself destitute when her art dealer husband, Stephan (Anthony Higgins) is sent to prison for theft. A rich patron, H.J. Heidler (Alan Bates), and his artist wife, Lois (Maggie Smith), offer to take Marya in for the duration of Stephan's incarceration. Heidler, a shameless philanderer with a history of taking advantage of helpless young women, soon seduces Marya - while Lois painfully accepts his infidelity. In 'Howards End' (1992), set in 1910, sisters Helen (Helena Bonham Carter) and Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) live in London with their brother, but the lease on their flat is about to expire. Margaret has recently befriended the ailing Mrs Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) who decides to bequeath her house, Howards End, to her. However, upon Mrs Wilcox's death her family close ranks, refusing to inform Margaret of her inheritance. When the widowed Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) begins to take a romantic interest in Margaret, however, the ensuing relationship leads to tragedy. In 'The Bostonians' (1984), set in 19th-century Boston, Verena Tarrant (Madeleine Potter) is torn between her feelings for Southern lawyer Basil Ransom (Christopher Reeve), who wants to marry her, and her passionate attachment to suffragette Olive Chancellor (Redgrave) and the fledgling Women's Movement. Finally, in 'The Europeans' (1979), set in the 1850s, Baroness Eugenia Munster (Lee Remick) travels from Europe with her brother Felix (Tim Woodward) to live with her puritanical relatives in New England, the Wentworths, who regard Eugenia and Felix as a pair of dangerous European bohemians. Felix falls in love with Gertrude Wentworth (Lisa Eichhorn) and Eugenia embarks on a romance with Robert Acton (Robin Ellis), the district's most eligible bachelor.