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Caravan (novel)
''Caravan'' is a melodramatic novel by the British writer Lady Eleanor Smith first published in 1942. A young Englishman James Darrell goes on the road living with the Romany people in England while trying to make enough money as a writer to marry his sweetheart Oriana. However, she does not wait for him and marries a wealthy young Englishman. James then undertakes a mission to Spain for a business friend, while there he is attacked and robbed. He is rescued by a gypsy woman but he has lost his memory. Having lost his memory, he marries the gypsy girl, Rosal, without knowing of his former life in Britain. When his memory returns he resents the gypsy girl for deceiving him but stays with her and works as a secretary for a famous bullfighter. When Rosal is accidentally killed by the bullfighter the hero goes to Morocco. Upon his return to England his book on his journeys in Spain make him a famous and wealthy man. He reunites with his first love, Oriana, who is trapped in a love ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melodrama
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or excessively sentimental, rather than action. Characters are often flat, and written to fulfill stereotypes. Melodramas are typically set in the private sphere of the home, focusing on morality and family issues, love, and marriage, often with challenges from an outside source, such as a "temptress", a scoundrel, or an aristocratic villain. A melodrama on stage, filmed, or on television is usually accompanied by dramatic and suggestive music that offers cues to the audience of the drama being presented. In scholarly and historical musical contexts, ''melodramas'' are Victorian dramas in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The term is now also applied to stage performances without incidental music, novels, films, tel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleanor Smith (writer)
Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith (7 August 1902 – 20 October 1945) was an English writer and active member of the Bright Young Things. Life Born in Birkenhead, England in 1902, Smith was the eldest child of the politician F. E. Smith's three children; her mother was Margaret Furneaux, daughter of the academic Henry Furneaux. Eleanor Smith was great-granddaughter of Joseph Severn on her mother's side, the Devonshire Furneaux, a Norman family. Her brother was Frederick Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead, and her sister Lady Pamela married Hon. Michael Berry. Her father was created Earl of Birkenhead in 1922. She went to Miss Douglas's school at Queen's Gate. At Queen's Gate she met Lady Allanah Harper, Zita Jungman, and Teresa "Baby" Jungman and together they became early members of what the British press would call the "Bright Young Things", a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London. As a young girl, she spent t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caravan (1946 Film)
''Caravan'' is a 1946 British black-and-white drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree. It was one of the Gainsborough melodramas and is based on the 1942 novel ''Caravan'' by Eleanor Smith. Stewart Granger later called the movie "terrible".Brian MacFarlane, ''An Autobiography of British Cinema'', Methuen 1997 p 230 Plot In late 19th-century London, destitute Richard Darrell (Stewart Granger) rescues Don Carlos (Gerard Heinz) from two robbers. When Richard returns for the manuscript he inadvertently left behind, he is encouraged by Don Carlos to talk about his background. The son of a poor country doctor, he met the upper class Oriana Camperdene and Francis Castleton during their childhood; he and Francis became rivals for Oriana's affections. Oriana and her father left for Spain, but the couple were reunited as adults and agreed to marry, much to Francis's disgust. However, they postponed the wedding for a year so that Richard could go to London and make his fortune as a writer. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gainsborough Pictures
Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, north London. Gainsborough Studios was active between 1924 and 1951. The company was initially based at Islington Studios, which were built as a power station for the Northern City Line, Great Northern & City Railway and later converted to studios. Other films were made at Lime Grove Studios, Lime Grove and Pinewood Studios. The former Islington studio was converted to flats in 2004 and a London Borough of Hackney historical plaque is attached to the building. The studio is best remembered for the Gainsborough melodramas it produced in the 1940s. Gainsborough Pictures is now owned by Gregory Motton. History Gainsborough was founded in 1924 by Michael Balcon and, from 1927, was a sister company to the Gaumont British, with Balcon as Director of Production for both studios. Whilst Gaumont-British, based at Lime ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gainsborough Melodramas
The Gainsborough melodramas were a sequence of films produced by the British film studio Gainsborough Pictures between 1943 and 1947 which conformed to a melodramatic style.Brooke, Michael. (2014)Gainsborough Melodrama Screenonline British Film Institute. Retrieved 21 March 2020. The melodramas were not a film series but an unrelated sequence of films which had similar themes that were usually developed by the same film crew and frequently recurring actors who played similar characters in each. They were mostly based on popular books by female novelists and they encompassed costume dramas, such as ''The Man in Grey'' (1943) and ''The Wicked Lady'' (1945), and modern-dress dramas, such as '' Love Story'' (1944) and ''They Were Sisters'' (1945). The popularity of the films with audiences peaked mid-1940s when cinema audiences consisted primarily of women. The influence of the films led to other British producers releasing similarly themed works, such as ''The Seventh Veil'' (1945), '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Crabtree
Arthur Crabtree (29 October 1900 in Shipley, Yorkshire, England – 15 March 1975 in Worthing, Sussex, England) was a British cinematographer and film director. He directed films with comedians such as Will Hay, the Crazy Gang and Arthur Askey and several of the Gainsborough Melodramas. Cinematographer Crabtree earliest credits as a cinematographer were for British International Pictures. He shot '' Out of the Blue'' (1931) with Jessie Matthews; '' Verdict of the Sea'' (1932); and ''The Maid of the Mountains'' (1932). Crabtree did some films for Michael Powell, '' Lazybones'' (1935) and ''The Love Test'' (1935). He was a camera operator on ''First a Girl''. Gainsborough Pictures Crabtree joined Gainsborough Pictures. He worked on '' The First Offence'' (1936) with John Mills; '' Pot Luck'' (1936) with Tom Walls and Ralph Lynn; '' Everybody Dance'' (1936) with Cicely Courtneidge; and '' All In'' (1936) with Lynn for director Marcel Varnel. He went on to ''Good Mornin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger (born James Lablache Stewart; 6 May 1913 – 16 August 1993) was a British film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s, rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas. Early life He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old Brompton Road, Kensington, West London, the only son of Major James Stewart, OBE and his wife Frederica Eliza (née Lablache). Granger was educated at Epsom College and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. He was the great-great-grandson of the opera singer Luigi Lablache and the grandson of the actor Luigi Lablache. Stewart Granger lived in Bournemouth at 57 Grove Road with his mother. His mother owned the property now called "East Cliff Cottage Hotel" until 1979. When he became an actor, he was advised to change his name in order to avoid being confused with the American actor James Stewart. Granger was his Scottish grand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Kent
Jean Kent (born Joan Mildred Field; 29 June 1921 − 30 November 2013) was an English film and television actress. Biography Born Joan Mildred Field (sometimes incorrectly cited as Summerfield) in Brixton, London in 1921, the only child of variety performers Norman Field (né Summerfield) and Nina Norre ( Mildred Noaks), whose marriage was registered in 1925, according to the General Register Index of England and Wales. Kent started her theatrical career at age 10 in 1931 as a dancer. She used the stage name Jean Carr when she appeared as a chorus girl in the Windmill Theatre in London from which she was fired by Vivian Van Damm. Gainsborough Pictures She signed to Gainsborough Pictures during the Second World War. Kent had small roles in ''It's That Man Again'' (1943), ''Miss London Ltd.'' (1943) and ''Warn That Man'' (1944). Kent had a good role in ''Two Thousand Women'' (1944), playing a stripper who is interned by the Germans. She was a Pacific Islander in '' Bees in Para ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Crawford
Imelda Anne Crawford (22 November 1920 – 17 October 1956) was a British film actress, born in Palestine of a Scottish father and an English mother, and brought up in Edinburgh. Biography A contemporary of Margaret Lockwood and Phyllis Calvert, Crawford is best remembered for her roles in women's pictures of the 1940s, such as ''Millions Like Us'' (1943), ''Two Thousand Women'' (1944) and ''They Were Sisters'' (1945). She married Wallace Douglas in 1953 and died of leukaemia in London in 1956, aged 35. ''The Times'', on 18 October 1956, reported that she was playing in Agatha Christie's ''The Spider's Web'', at London's Savoy Theatre, when she became ill. Also, that after acting in a stage production of ''The Gift'', about a scientist blinded by an accident, she added a codicil to her will leaving her eyes to the International Eye Bank Eye banks recover, prepare and deliver donated eyes for cornea transplants and research. The first successful cornea transplant was perform ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dennis Price
Dennistoun Franklyn John Rose Price (23 June 1915 – 6 October 1973) was an English actor, best remembered for his role as Louis Mazzini in the film ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' (1949) and for his portrayal of the omnicompetent valet Jeeves in 1960s television adaptations of P. G. Wodehouse's stories. Biography Early life Price was born in Ruscombe in Berkshire. He had distant Welsh family connections, and was the son of Brigadier-General Thomas Rose Caradoc Price (1875–1949) CMG DSO (who was a great-grandson of Sir Rose Price, 1st Baronet and, through his mother, a descendant of the Baillie baronets of Polkemmet, near Whitburn, West Lothian) and his wife Dorothy, née Verey, daughter of Sir Henry Verey, Official Referee of the Supreme Court of Judicature."Mr Dennis Price – An actor of style", ''The Times'', 8 October 1973, p. 19Gaye, p. 1076 He attended Copthorne Prep School, Radley College and Worcester College, Oxford. He studied acting at the Embassy Theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1942 British Novels
Year 194 ( CXCIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Septimius and Septimius (or, less frequently, year 947 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 194 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Emperor Septimius Severus and Decimus Clodius Septimius Albinus Caesar become Roman Consuls. * Battle of Issus: Septimius Severus marches with his army (12 legions) to Cilicia, and defeats Pescennius Niger, Roman governor of Syria. Pescennius retreats to Antioch, and is executed by Severus' troops. * Septimius Severus besieges Byzantium (194–196); the city walls suffer extensive damage. Asia * Battle of Yan Province: Warlords Cao Cao and Lü Bu fight for control over Yan Province; the battle lasts for over 100 days ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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