FirstWitch
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
BelSports
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Juana
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
cluciano63
I was expecting a cheap melodrama set in Victorian era, but instead this is a well-done, suspenseful movie concerning the struggle for ownership/inheritance of an estate, and a young woman who arrives as a poor relation and marries the heir.Valerie Hobson gives a strong performance as Blanche; once she is widowed (due to the machinations of her obsessed lover, Stewart Grainger as the illegitimate heir) she even looks different, older, strained, whereas she was all frills and glamor before. It is difficult to see Stewart as such a vindictive man, cruel to the end, and a surprise, as I figured he was only doing hero roles once he became a star, but maybe that was an American thing; this film is British.The ending does come as a surprise and shows that one can control even from the grave.
a-east
If you want to approach the movie or the novel with virgin eyes, please be advised the following discussion may contain SPOILERS. Despite a number of changes, (some minor, some major), the movie represents a worthy effort to get the book onto film. However, commercial considerations posed obvious problems. The Blanche of the book is cold, tough, and not very likable. If her adversaries were the same or even more so, one might still root for her, but the people she regards as enemies or obstacles are simply dull and drab rather than evil. Since the movie wants to have box office appeal, and since it stars as Blanche the popular actress Valerie Hobson, the screenplay tries to soften Blanche's image, which takes some of the starch from the story. In the book, for example, the Stewart Granger character is married to an ailing wife. Since having Valerie Hobson engage in an affair with this married man would make her look bad, the movie simply eliminates the ailing wife. In the book Blanche's cousin (Michael Gough) is married to the meek, inoffensive Olivia. Blanche regards Olivia with casual contempt but since, once again, this makes Blanche look bad, Olivia is also eliminated from the script. (Michael Gough is now introduced as a widower with a young daughter.) With Olivia disposed of, the screenplay is now free to marry Blanche off to her widowed cousin but since Blanche wants the cousin out of the way so she can inherit his estate, the screenplay tries to "justify" Blanche's desire by turning this harmless drudge of a cousin into a rather mean and nasty character whose death is unlamented. A further effort is made to soften Blanche's image by having her desperately try to save little stepdaughter Lavinia from a horse-riding accident. In the book, little Lavinia is actually shot in the same "gypsy" attack which killed her father and grandfather. Finally, a pregnancy is added to the screenplay so that Blanche can be seen as somehow atoning for her sins by giving birth to a boy who will, presumably, restore his inheritance to a state of pride and purity. This continual softening of Blanche's character gives the movie a vaguely uncertain tone. One wishes it had been a bit tougher, leaving Blanche alone at the end with "the bitter fruits of self-reliance," but the screenwriters' desire to make their heroine more palatable is understandable and, despite its flaws, their movie still holds interest throughout and is, in its mounting and photography, a glory to behold.
Michael O'Keefe
A Gothic melodrama set in a huge English country mansion. A young penniless woman named Blanche(Valerie Hobson)sees her life's station moving upward when she takes the position of governess from her distant cousins. The wealthy cousins took the name Fury when acquiring the home from the Fury family. Blanche will fall in love with a disinherited Fury descendant Philip Thorn(Stewart Granger), who is serving as a manservant to patriarch Simon Fury(Walter Fitzgerald). The ambitious Blanche marries her employer(and relation)the soft spoken Laurence Fury(Michael Gough). Meanwhile Philip sees his chance to gain what he thinks is rightfully his own...the ancestral home; he convinces his lover Blanche to take part in murdering her husband. Why does this sound like an old soap opera? Other players: Susanne Gibbs, Ernest Jay, Sybille Binder, Maurice Denham and Edward Lexy.
MARIO GAUCI
This is another title I inexplicably missed out on over the years (a local Sunday matinée' TV screening and a late-night Italian-subtitled broadcast on the renowned "After Hours" program come to mind) which, having watched now, I was quite enthralled with. BLANCHE FURY is a typical yet reasonably absorbing Gothic melodrama – given added luster by its dazzling color photography, inventive décor, and even the odd stylistic flourish by Frenchman Allegret – made in the wake of the famed "Gainsborough school" romantic period pieces which began with THE MAN IN GREY (1943; a viewing of which accordingly followed this one in short order, since I had already by-passed it last year on a couple of anniversaries tied with star James Mason!) though, plot-wise, the film seems to have at least as much to do with that which is virtually the template for this type of fare i.e. "Wuthering Heights". In fact, here we have Stewart Granger (who was also in THE MAN IN GREY) forced to work as a stable-boy in his own family's estate – since he is illegitimate – while the present unrelated masters have taken up their name!; of course, he is contemptuous of this situation, though he finds a surprising ally – and love interest – in a cousin of the new landlords (Valerie Hobson) who turns up on the premises ostensibly to serve as governess to the little girl that stands to inherit the lot. Of course, she instantly charms the younger man of the house (a characteristically despicable Michael Gough) and proceeds to marry him, while carrying on with her Granger affair; about to be dismissed for his none-too-submissive attitude, our disgruntled hero conspires with Hobson to get rid of all the obstacles to their running the estate (since he intends to marry her himself) – the blame of which he proposes to lay at the door of a gypsy troupe who had been causing trouble in the area and even threatened the family specifically! – but, while she concedes to the death of Gough and his father, she takes exception to Granger's ruthlessness in the matter by wanting to dispose of the little girl as well. Needless to say, by reporting him to the proper authorities, she not only confesses to her own role in the plan, taints her reputation by being branded an adulteress but, most importantly, sacrifices her own happiness; the ultimate irony is that, just as Granger is being hanged, the little girl herself expires in a riding accident – leaving Hobson all alone, with-child (Granger's offspring), and sole owner of the tragic property! In conclusion, apart from the above-mentioned THE MAN IN GREY, I have SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS (1948) – yet another costumer featuring Stewart Granger – scheduled for the coming days
