The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Simply A Masterpiece

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW is a cheap Canadian TV movie version of the short story. It came out in the same year as Tim Burton's blockbuster SLEEPY HOLLOW, which of course had a much bigger budget and is therefore a slicker and better realised production. Saying that, I did like the way this film presents a more traditional, anchored, and realistic fairy tale, in which the cheesy ghostly stuff is kept to a bare minimum.Needless to say that unknown actor Brent Carver gives a much better performance as Ichabod Crane than Johnny Depp did in the Burton film. Depp played it as all quirk, a desperate attention-seeking performance that turned my stomach. By comparison Carver is nervy and mild-mannered, much closer in realisation to the Ichabod of the book. I'm still holding out on seeing Jeff Goldblum in the role though (he made a film of the story in 1980) as I can imagine he'd supply the definitive portrayal.Elsewhere, THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW suffers from the usual issues associated with the TV movie genre, namely lots of padding which only serves to drag the pacing down when it should be snappy. That's one of the perils of adapting a short story for a feature length movie. The romance stuff is quite horrible as is the acting of Rachelle LeFevre, later the star of TV's UNDER THE DOME. Burton's is the better version due to the budget and supporting cast alone, although I'm still waiting to see the definitive version of the story.

1999 was the year the loose adaptation of Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", entitled "Sleepy Hollow" and directed by Tim Burton, came to the silver screen, which resulted in a successful theatrical run. What many people who have seen that movie may not realize is that a made-for-TV version of the story was released the same year. I saw some of this film in October 1999 (I guess when it first aired), but I think I only saw the first little bit of it. After watching the Tim Burton version a couple months ago, I couldn't remember enough of the audio book I heard a number of times in my childhood, and decided to actually read Irving's famous short story in book form. After doing that, I watched this version, with mixed results.In the late 18th century, after the American Revolutionary War, Ichabod Crane is a man from Connecticut who comes to a quiet little town called Sleepy Hollow and soon becomes this town's new schoolmaster. He fears there is evil around him when he is outside at night, a lot different from during the day. He falls in love with Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only offspring of a wealthy farmer. However, in order to win Katrina's heart, he will have to compete with an oafish young man named Brom Bones. The schoolmaster also hears stories from inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow while staying in this town, including one about the Headless Horseman, the ghost of a Hessian from the American Revolutionary War who was killed in battle when his head was removed, and is now believed to appear at night and endanger those travelling out in the dark! The starring role of Ichabod Crane is assumed here by an actor named Brent Carver. I haven't seen him in too many roles, but understand that he has done a number of Broadway performances during his acting career. This is not surprising looking at his performance here, with his overacting. This may work on Broadway, but not in a film like this. It's sometimes ridiculous how high his voice gets, and he just seems too excited. If Carver's portrayal of the character is supposed to be funny, it's not. There are other unsatisfactory performances in this adaptation, including Rachelle Lefevre as Katrina Van Tassel and especially Paul Lemelin as Brom Bones. This version of Bones is certainly not how I imagined the character while reading Irving's story. I did NOT imagine a stereotypical arrogant teenager, which is what Lemelin's version seems like! Not only does this made-for-TV film have severe acting and casting flaws, it also has some script problems, with some ridiculous scenes showing Ichabod's imagination, and the script can't quite carry the film consistently throughout.I haven't seen every film adaptation of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", but since this and the Tim Burton version were released the same year, and I have now seen them both, it's obviously hard not to compare them. Without a doubt, this television adaptation is a much more faithful one than the successful theatrical 1999 version, and some viewers praise it for that. However, I know many hardcore fans of the original story by Washington Irving who have seen this version would disagree, but I think Burton's film is far superior, and comparing the two really shows that following the source material isn't everything. Despite this TV version's major flaws, it somehow kept me watching, without wanting to turn it off before the end. This was probably because I at least found mild suspense, plus this version has some nice cinematography and I guess I found the story fairly intriguing for the most part. Still, they could have done better with this made-for-TV movie in more than one way.

This isn't a bad version of "The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow." -- it does, however, suffer from being stretched into a 90min movie.Large parts of the production drag until you are grinding your teeth waiting for something to happen... with no real pay off at the end. Had they made this as a 45 minute short, it may well have worked. Decent enough acting, and probably worth a watch if nothing else is on.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1999): Not to be confused with the marvelous Tim Burton film that was released the same year, this version (produced for Canadian television) is, at best, a tepid adaptation of Washington Irving's classic story. Unlike the Burton and little-seen Jeff Goldblum versions, which both utilized different takes on the plot, this small-budget translation literally goes by the book, yet it suffers greatly from trying to stretch out the short source material to feature length. The results are incredibly slow pacing and lack of zest throughout, right up to the unspectacular representation of the Headless Horseman. Brent Carver and Rachelle Lefevre deliver as Ichabod Crane and Katrina Van Tassel, respectively, but babyfaced Paul Lemelin is miscast in the role of roughneck Brom Bones. The film's erroneous opinion of itself states that it "captures the mystery and romance that have eluded other screen efforts." Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. 5/10