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Fanny by Gaslight (film)

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Director
  
Anthony Asquith

Language
  
English

7.2/10
IMDb

Duration
  

Country
  
United Kingdom


Writer
  
Michael Sadleir
,
Doreen Montgomery

Release date
  
1944 (UK)1946 (France)1948 (USA)

Fanny by Gaslight (US title – Man of Evil) is a 1944 British drama film, produced by Gainsborough Pictures, set in the 1870s and adapted from a novel by Michael Sadleir (also adapted as a 1981 mini-series). It was one of its famous period-set "Gainsborough melodramas". Its US release was delayed for its breaking the Hays Purity Code, and 17 minutes were removed for this release.

Contents

Plot

Fanny (Phyllis Calvert) finishes at boarding school in 1880 and returns to London, where she witnesses Lord Manderstoke (James Mason) fight and kill her supposed father. She soon learns that her family has run a brothel next door to her home and (on her mother's death) that he was not her real father. She goes to meet her real father – a respected politician – and falls in love with Harry Somerford (Stewart Granger), his advisor. Manderstoke continues to thwart her happiness.

Cast

  • Phyllis Calvert as Fanny Hooper
  • James Mason as Lord Manderstoke
  • Wilfrid Lawson as Chunks
  • Stewart Granger as Harry Somerford
  • Jean Kent as Lucy Beckett
  • Margaretta Scott as Alicia
  • Nora Swinburne as Mrs. Hopwood
  • Cathleen Nesbitt as Kate Somerford
  • Helen Haye as Mrs. Somerford
  • John Laurie as William Hopwood
  • Stuart Lindsell as Clive Seymour
  • Amy Veness as Mrs. Heaviside
  • Ann Wilton as Carver
  • Guy Le Feuvre as Doctor Lowenthal
  • Esma Cannon as Gossping maid
  • Ann Stephens as Fanny as a child
  • Gloria Sydney as Lucy as a child
  • John Turnbull as Magistrate
  • Cyril Smith as Publican
  • Helen Goss as Polly
  • Johnnie Schofield as Joe
  • Vi Kaley as Joe's wife
  • Peter Jones as New client at The Shades

    • Production

    Stewart Granger later said he "didn't like" the film because of its "drippy characters" but thought "Asquith was much the best of those directors I worked with at Gainsborough."

    Reception

    It was the second most popular film in Britain during 1944, after This Happy Breed. However, it performed very badly at the box office in the US.

    References

    Fanny by Gaslight (film) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA

    Fanny by Gaslight (film) IMDb