Blanche Fury

Blanche Fury - 1947 | 90 mins | Drama | Colour

The Production Team

Director: Marc Allégret.
Producer: Anthony Havelock-Allan.
Script: Audrey Erskine-Lindop and Cecil McGivern. Additional dialogue by Hugh Mills.
Cinematography: Guy Green and Geoffrey Unsworth.
Editing: Jack Harris.
Production Design: John Bryan.
Art Direction: Wilfred Shingleton.
Costume Design: Sophie Harris.
Makeup Department: George Blackler and Biddy Chrystal.
Sound Department: Gordon K. McCallum, Charles Poulton, Winston Ryder and Jack Slade.
Original Music: Clifton Parker.

The Cast

Stewart Granger - Philip Thorn
Valerie Hobson - Blanche Fury
Michael Gough - Laurence Fury
Walter Fitzgerald - Simon Fury
Susanne Gibbs - Lavinia Fury
Maurice Denham - Major Fraser
Sybille Binder - Lousia
Ernest Jay - Calamy
Townsend Whitling - Banks
J.H. Roberts - Doctor

Plot Synopsis

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.