Haunted Summer 1816: the Shelleys Byron Polidori
The summer of 1816 saw Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (before their marriage) travel to the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, Switzerland, to visit Lord Byron and his personal physician, John William Polidori. Each of these people wrote something of major significance that summer. These are movies about them.
Most anywhere you read about 'The Haunted Summer', the standard line is that there were 3 films made about it in the late 80s - end of story. This list shows there are much more.
(Claire Clairmont joined them that summer but wrote nothing.
Also: the unusually cold and stormy weather in 1816 resulted in it being called 'the Year Without a Summer'. This was caused by the volcanic erruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.)
Most anywhere you read about 'The Haunted Summer', the standard line is that there were 3 films made about it in the late 80s - end of story. This list shows there are much more.
(Claire Clairmont joined them that summer but wrote nothing.
Also: the unusually cold and stormy weather in 1816 resulted in it being called 'the Year Without a Summer'. This was caused by the volcanic erruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.)
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- DirectorKen RussellStarsGabriel ByrneJulian SandsNatasha RichardsonThe Shelleys visit Lord Byron and compete to write a horror story.
- DirectorIvan PasserStarsPhilip AnglimLaura DernAlice KrigeIn 1816, authors Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley get together for some philosophical discussions, but the situation soon deteriorates into mind games, drugs and sex.Adapted from the speculative novel by Anne Edwards.
- DirectorGonzalo SuárezStarsHugh GrantLizzy McInnernyValentine PelkaLord Byron, poet Percy Shelley, his future wife, Mary Shelley (writing Frankenstein) and others spend the summer of 1816 together.
- DirectorPhilip SmithStarsClaire FoyNeil GaimanRichard HolmesA drama-documentary telling the story of the celebrated gathering in Geneva, 1816 which led to the creation of both Frankenstein and the first modern vampire story.Yet another take on that infamous stormy summer night.
- DirectorMary DownesStarsRobert WinstonDavid SchofieldLucy DavenportA drama telling the story of the life of the writer of Frankenstein. Telling of her influences, her writing and her personal life.A 70 minute TV movie featuring the characters of Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsHéloïse GodetKamel AbdelliRichard ChevallierA silent, surreal parallel between a couple and a dog.This is Jean-Luc Godard's 3D experimental narrative essay film. One of the themes involves different threesomes and their similar lives in different time periods. For this list, we;re concerned with the part where a narrator mentions that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein near the lead couples house in Cologny; the character of Shelley is seen in the country writing her book with quill and ink and is joined by the Lord Byron and Percy Shelley characters.
- DirectorSam HobkinsonStarsCara HorganThe second episode of The Romantics 3 part mini-series, on 'Nature'. Features Mary and Percy Shelley as well as Lord Byron.
- DirectorEmil NovakStarsMelantha BlackthorneBob BozekJason John BeebeA wager is made, a book of horror fiction is written. It becomes know as, "Frankenstein, or a Modern Prometheus", by Mary Shelley. Though what happens if fiction was fact? Can a soul be immortal. Is everlasting life worth such misery?A low budget independent film set in NYC, which examines the idea behind Mary Shelley's premise; from Lord Byron's challenge to Victor von Frankenstein lamenting rejection from the creature and having allowed Proteus his freedom.
- DirectorKipp TribbleDerik WingoStarsWilliam BaldwinJohn JamesDanny TrejoAfter witnessing a horrific sight, two men inexplicably claim to be one another at New Year's Eve parties...only the parties are six years apart.A time travel film in which Percy and Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, John Polidori, and Claire Clairmont all appear.
- DirectorAndy WilsonStarsBenjamin ZephaniahTimothy SpallAlex JenningsBenjamin Zephaniah, renowned Rastafarian poet/rapper is traveling by train from Birmingham to Cambridge to receive his Creative Arts Fellowship sharing a carriage with a racist and philistine car spares salesman played by Timothy Spall; by chance the poets Keats, Byron, Shelley and writer Mary Shelley are transported from a séance they are conducting in The Villa Como by a freak electrical storm. A battle of wits, drug taking and poetry performance ensues.A half hour TV episode in which a Rastafarian poet/rapper, a racist and a car spares salesman are visited on a train by Keats, Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley - who have been transported from a séance they were conducting by a freak electrical storm.
- DirectorLynn Hershman LeesonStarsTilda SwintonFrancesca FaridanyTimothy LearyEmmy Coer, a computer genius, devises a method of communicating with the past by tapping into undying information waves. She manages to reach the world of Ada Lovelace, founder of the idea of a computer language and proponent of the possibilities of the "difference engine." Ada's ideas were stifled and unfulfilled because of the reality of life as a woman in the nineteenth century. Emmy has a plan to defeat death and the past using her own DNA as a communicative agent to the past, bringing Ada to the present. But what are the possible ramifications?A time travel film featuring Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and Lady Anne Isabelle Byron to boot.
- DirectorRobert BoltStarsSarah MilesJon FinchRichard ChamberlainA noblewoman doomed to a loveless marriage falls into a scandalous affair with the dashing Lord Byron.
- DirectorJulian FarinoStarsStephen Campbell MooreOliver MilburnMichael ElwynFollowing the success of his poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", Byron becomes the toast of London.
- DirectorCharles CalvertStarsHoward GayeMarjorie HumeMary ClareLord Byron's wife leaves him after a jealous lady plots his ruin.
- DirectorDavid MacDonaldStarsDennis PriceMai ZetterlingJoan GreenwoodSeriously ill on a military campaign in Greece, Lord Byron dreams of being judged upon his death, as either a poet and soldier or as a seducer and libertine. Amongst the witnesses called are his free-thinking mistress, Lady Caroline Lamb and his more conventional wife, Annabella.The sanitised biopic - which is odd considering the title, but obvious considering that it's 1949.
- DirectorNikos KoundourosStarsManos VakousisVera SotnikovaVasilis LaggosPoet Lord Byron decides to fight with the Greek revolutionaries in Missolonghi against the Turks but instead the glorious battle wrestles with fever and his own demons.
- StarsRupert Everett
- DirectorZack GodshallStarsGwendolyn SpradlingKayla LemaireEric SchexnayderByron lives with his ex-wife, her kids, and her boyfriend, and when he's not pursuing his primary passion, women, he spends his time smoking weed and loafing around. But he's grown restless in his middle-age, and he feels the need to escape. He just doesn't know where to go. Filled with a cast of eccentric characters, each pursuing dreams and missions of their own making, LORD BYRON paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of the bizarre and lonely world of its title character, a middle-aged, late-20th century romantic who's confused and torn about his own ambitions and desires. Made on a micro-budget with a cast of non-professional actors from South Louisiana, LORD BYRON combines tragedy with bizarre comedy, naturalistic performances with outright madness.Thoroughly modern adaptation based on the character and lifestyle of the real Lord Byron.
- DirectorPierre BureauStarsJean-François PoronBernard AlaneCharles CharrasA French TV movie that I know next to nothing about, except it features the characters of Lord Byron (as the lead) and Mary Shelley.
- DirectorJohn GlenisterStarsKeith BarronJulian BurberyGigi GattiThe life of the infamous - but great - poet.The BBCs earliest Biography programme did an 85 minute episode on Lord Byron.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsJohn HurtRaul JuliaNick BrimbleThe ultimate weapon which was meant to be safe for the mankind produces global side effects including time slides and disappearances.The scientist behind the project and his car are zapped from the year 2031 to 1817's Switzerland.Time traveller Dr. Buchanan meets Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley - as well as Victor von Frankenstein.
- DirectorJames WhaleStarsBoris KarloffElsa LanchesterColin CliveMary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
- DirectorHaifaa Al-MansourStarsElle FanningBel PowleyOwen RichardsLife and facts of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who at 16 met 21 year old poet Percy Shelley, resulting in the writing of Frankenstein.
- DirectorGuylaine DionneStarsSarah AllenStéfanie BuxtonJoe CobdenIn 1816, Mary Shelley, 19 years old, had written Frankenstein, the first science-fiction novel. She died, without knowing that she had given rise to one of the most important myths of the Western culture. However, the interest of the life of Mary Shelley exceeds her masterpiece: free, avant-gardist, her life is filled with spectacular bounces. So much that the novel and the life of the writer seem sometimes inseparable. Where the fiction stops and where the reality starts?
- DirectorAlan BridgesStarsJenny AgutterPeter BowlesNicolas Chagrin