Country: Canada
Language: English
Runtime: 2 episodes x 125 min. or 4 episodes x 55 min.
Airdates: 19, 26 May, 2, 9 June 1987 (Disney Channel), 6-7 December 1987 (CBC), 5, 12 March 1988 (PBS), 30-31 December 1989 (Channel 4)
Production Companies: Sullivan Films Inc. (Anne of Green Gables II Productions [1986] Inc.), Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Disney Channel, PBS/Wonderworks, Channel 4
Funding Agencies: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Telefilm Canada
Producer/Writer/Director: Kevin Sullivan
Executive Producers: Trudy Grant, Kevin Sullivan
Executives in Charge of Production: Nada Harcourt (for CBC), Jay Rayvid (for Wonderworks), Cathy Johnson (for Disney Channel)
Line Producer: Duane Howard
Cinematography: Marc Champion
Art Direction: Susan Longmire
Costume Design: Martha Mann
Editor: Mairin Wilkinson, James Lahti
Music: Hagood Hardy
Source Material: Based on the novels Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, and Anne of Windy Poplars by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Alternate Titles: Anne of Avonlea: The Continuing Story of Anne of Green Gables (Disney Channel broadcast); Anne of Avonlea (Walt Disney Home Video); Anne… La Maison aux pignons verts: La suite (French Canada)
Tag: A Kevin Sullivan Production
Principal Cast: Megan Follows (Anne Shirley), Colleen Dewhurst (Marilla Cuthbert), Dame Wendy Hiller (Mrs. Harris), Patricia Hamilton (Rachel Lynde), Jonathan Crombie (Gilbert Blythe), Marilyn Lightstone (Miss Stacey), Schuyler Grant (Diana Barry), Rosemary Dunsmore (Katherine Brooke), Kate Lynch (Pauline Harris), Frank Converse (Morgan Harris)
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092571/
In this sequel to Kevin Sullivan’s critically and commercially successful 1985 miniseries, Sullivan adapts selected plot threads from three subsequent Montgomery texts into a thematically fitting follow-up story. Sullivan justified such a creative decision by claiming the “book sequels weren’t of value as single films” (Wesley 8 ) and that, compared to Montgomery’s novels Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, and Anne of Windy Poplars, “those who have seen [the film] like it better” (“TV Talkback” S14). After teaching at the Avonlea Public School for two years, eighteen-year-old Anne decides to leave Avonlea after she is offered a teaching position at Kingsport Ladies College in New Brunswick. Rejecting Gilbert’s marriage proposal on the belief that she has not yet experienced true love, Anne becomes infatuated with Morgan Harris, the father of her pet pupil, but realizes she has outgrown her childhood fantasy of chivalric romance. When she hears Gilbert is deathly ill, she realizes her love for him and they agree to marry as soon as Gilbert completes his medical studies at Dalhousie University in three years.
Sullivan’s decision to enlist two American broadcasters (Disney Channel and PBS) is curious, given that the Disney Channel changed the title of the film to Anne of Avonlea: The Continuing Story of Anne of Green Gables. Although both the Disney Channel and PBS had joint broadcasting windows in the United States, the film is most commonly known to American audiences (and available to them from Walt Disney Home Video) as Anne of Avonlea. The film earned six Gemini Awards (including Best Dramatic Miniseries), two CableAce Awards, and numerous other international awards and accolades. At the time of its release in Canada, Sullivan announced that this Anne film would be the last (Wesley 8 ).
Merchandise
DVD (English)
Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel. Sullivan Entertainment’s. Toronto: Sullivan Entertainment, [2000].* [Includes behind-the-scenes photographs, missing scenes, director's commentary, and miscellaneous materials. Has been reissued since.]
Anne of Green Gables: Five-Disc Collector’s Edition. Toronto: Sullivan Entertainment, [2006].
Home Video (English)
Anne of Avonlea. Walt Disney Home Video and Wonderworks Present A Kevin Sullivan Film. Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Home Video, n.d.*
Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel. A Kevin Sullivan Production. Toronto: Nova Home Video, n.d.*
Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel. Sullivan Entertainment Presents. Toronto: Sullivan Releasing, [1996].*
Home Video (French)
Anne…La Maison aux pignons verts: La suite. Une production de Kevin Sullivan. Toronto: Nova Home Video, n.d.*
Anne…La Maison aux pignons verts: La suite. Sullivan Entertainment présente. Toronto: Sullivan Entertainment, n.d.*
Anne…La Maison aux pignons verts. 4 volumes. Montréal: Imavision Distribution, [2000]. [Volume 1: Anne...La Maison aux pignons verts, episodes 1 and 2; Volume 2: Anne...La Maison aux pignons verts, episodes 3 and 4; Volume 3: Anne...La Maison aux pignons verts, La suite, episodes 1 and 2; Volume 4: Anne...La Maison aux pignons verts: La suite, episodes 3, 4, and 5.]
Soundtrack
Anne. Original Music Score for the Sullivan Films Emmy Award Winning TV Presentation of Anne of Green Gables [and Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel]. Composed and Conducted by Hagood Hardy. Toronto: Attic Records, n.d. [Issued first as a cassette, then later as a CD.]
Further Reading
Adilman, Sid. “Bestest Present: CTV could have its ratings winner.” Toronto Star, 14 January 1986, F1.
“Anne charms U.S. critics all over again.” Toronto Star, 25 May 1987, D3.
Bawden, Jim. “Anne of Green Gables TV sequel planned.” Toronto Star, 12 June 1986, H1.
Follows, Megan. “I’m already starting to miss her.” TV Guide, 5 December 1987, 6-15.
Frever, Trinna S. “Vaguely Familiar: Cinematic Intertextuality in Kevin Sullivan’s Anne of Avonlea.” Canadian Children’s Literature / Littérature canadienne pour la jeunesse 91-92 (Fall-Winter 1998): 36-52.
Johnson, Brian D. “Anne of Green Gables Grows Up.” Maclean’s, 7 December 1987, 46-50.
Hersey, Eleanor. “‘It’s all mine’: The Modern Woman as Writer in Sullivan’s Anne of Green Gables Films.” In Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture, edited by Irene Gammel, 131-44. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002.
Howey, Ann F. “‘She look’d down to Camelot’: Anne Shirley, Sullivan, and the Lady of Shalott.” In Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture, edited by Irene Gammel, 160-73. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002.
Mietkiewicz, Henry. “New hours too much: Thorsen quits CFRB.” Toronto Star, 20 August 1986, B1.
Poe, K.L. “Who’s Got the Power? Montgomery, Sullivan, and the Unsuspecting Viewer.” In Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture, edited by Irene Gammel, 145-59. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002.
“TV Talkback.” Toronto Star, 28 March 1987, S14.
Wesley, David. “This Anne film will be the last.” TV Times, 5 December 1987, 8.
Wiggins, Genevieve. L.M. Montgomery. Twayne’s World Authors Series 834. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992. [See 85-86.]
