BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Motompa Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

jarrodmcdonald-1 A very atmospheric film...and the director (Marc Allegret) is doing specific things with the positioning of the actors and Technicolor to create illusions of depth and perspective as in a Renaissance painting. It is exquisitely filmed, and all seasons are in evidence with the on- location shooting. It must have been a very painstaking and exacting filming process that was not at all hurried. Allegret was a French filmmaker who went to England after the Second World War to make a few English-language productions. BLANCHE FURY is considered the best of those. By the early 50s, he would return to his native France where he spent the rest of his career. I haven't seen any of his French films, and I am eager to do so. I assume that if BLANCHE FURY is any indication of this director's talents, then there must be a lot of greatness in his other works as well.So why does BLANCHE FURY stand up so well? Not only is the use of colour and staging incredibly controlled, we have leads like Valerie Hobson and Stewart Granger who simply could not be better. Granger's line deliveries are the sharpest I've ever seen from him, and he's very good in a courtroom scene near the end of the story. Hobson, who was married to the producer, brings a pensiveness and a penance to the character she plays. The layers upon layers of guilt that she projects after a dangerous wish turns deadly is superbly played.But I think what pulls me into this film so strongly is that we see and feel the change in temperature. Not only do the scenes in the countryside and the ones around the exterior of the manor show us a variety of seasonal activities, but the way the characters adjust to these seasons perfectly convey how their own inner-natures change as they move toward their startling conclusions.

secondtake Blanche Fury (1948)A highly romantic and somewhat familiar tale of a penniless young woman moving into a house with wealth. It's a British affair, literally...it's both a forbidden love story and a highly structured tale of the class structure in 19th Century England. It's also in full Technicolor, and so has a rich, beautiful, warm quality. In all it's an impressive little period piece film, but you have to like this kind of story to get through it happily.The leading woman is not the compelling innocent that Joan Fontaine pulls of in "Rebecca," or "Jane Eyre." In fact, she a little offputting--not because she strong, but because she's a little practical, not a romantic type, and movies like this work with types. The leading man, the embittered and handsome Stewart Granger, is better, and as his role increases the movie gels. The plot does have some dramatic turns, if turns is the word. It's better to say that it has some really ruthless moments, though you can slightly see them coming. The motive is love, though, and in love everything is possible, if not exactly a good idea. And this devious violence is some explanation for the unsympathetic nature of our main woman, the title character. Fury, by they way, is just the last name of the family in question.The house, by the way, is a real mansion in England, Wooton Lodge. And the life it depicts is probably pretty accurate, though the mischief of the gypsies is hypothetical.

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

zetes Actually, it's a British period piece that has many plot elements in common with a strain of movies of the 1940s, like Rebecca, Dragonwyck, and even Duel in the Sun. A woman working as a maid, Blanche Fuller (Valerie Hobson), discovers that she is on the fringes of a very wealthy family, the Furies. When she arrives, she discovers a strange situation. Her family, the Fullers, who come from a lower class background, have married into the Furies, all of whom have died. The only remaining Fury, or possibly a Fury, is Philip Thorn (Stewart Granger), supposedly the illegitimate son of the last living Fury. He works on their estate, called Claire, but he is trying to inherit the estate; his lawyer is researching his lineage. He's desperate to get his hands on the place. When Blanche marries her cousin, Laurence Fury, Thorn devises to seduce her. Also in his plotting he decides to use a group of Gypsies who have come into conflict with Claire and the Furies. Though it took a while for Blanche Fury to capture my wandering attention, eventually I started to get into it. The performances are what drew me in. Granger was especially delightful as the evil, scheming Thorn. I had to laugh at his clever deviousness at times. A man after my own heart, he is! Hobson is quite good, as is Michael Gough, who plays her weakling husband. The color cinematography and musical score are fine. The script feels like it came from a novel, but it was written for the screen, making it especially impressive. I like the character arc of Blanche Fury. She begins as a sort of a schemer herself, planning to get rich and wield her feminine power over the estate. Only when she comes into conflict with Thorn, a more clever and desperate conspirator, does she realize she herself has done wrong and will now have to do the right thing. The ending is weird, but rather haunting. This is an exceptional film. 9/10.