Blanche Fury

United Kingdom

1948

90 Min

Color

1.37:1

English

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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SCR Audrey Erskine-Lindop, Cecil McGivern, Hugh Mills, Joseph Shearing

DP Guy Green, Geoffrey Unsworth

CAST Valerie Hobson, Stewart Granger, Michael Gough, Walter Fitzgerald, Susanne Gibbs, Maurice Denham, Sybille Binder, Ernest Jay, Townsend Whitling, J.H. Roberts, Allan Jeayes, Edward Lexy, Arthur Wontner

Victorian gothic melodrama concerning forbidden passion, family secrets and murder. From the novel by Joseph Shearing, and based on the Rush Murder Case of the 1849, Frenchman Marc Allegret’s direction is taut, and Guy Green and Geoffrey Unsworth’s smouldering TechniColour camerawork won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

Set in Norfolk. Blanche Fuller (Valerie Hobson), a penniless, ambitious girl is asked by her rich uncle, Simon Fury (Walter Fitzgerald), to become mistress of a stately home and governess to his widowed son’s, Lawrence (Michael Gough), daughter. Blanche agrees to marry Lawrence despite her love for the illegitimate son and estate manager, Thorn (Stewart Granger), of the previous owner who believes the estate to be his rightfully. Panic puts an end to the wedding festivities when gypsies set fire to the barns. The scheming Philip, driven by jealousy, hopes the gypsies will be blamed when he shoots Simon and Lawrence in the guise of a gypsy. But fate takes a hand in the future of Blanche and her lover when she underestimates Thorn’s bitterness towards the Fury family. —Britmovie.co.uk

Director

Marc Allégret

Marc Allégret (22 December 1900 – 3 November 1973) was a French screenwriter and film director.

Born in Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland, he was the elder brother of Yves Allégret. Marc was educated to be a lawyer. Allégret became André Gide’s lover when he was fifteen and Gide was forty-seven. Later, Marc was to fall briefly under the spell of Cocteau, who Gide feared would “corrupt” him.

Marc’s father, Elie Allégret, had originally been hired by Gide’s mother to tutor her son in light of his weak grades in school, after which he and his charge became fast friends. In 1895 Elie was best man at Gide’s wedding.

After filming a 1927 trip to the Congo with Gide, he chose to pursue a career in the motion picture industry. His relationship with Gide ended after that trip, as Allégret found out that he preferred women after having experiences with Congolese women. They nevertheless remained close friends until Gide’s death in 1951. After working and training as an assistant… read more