The plot of "Blanche Fury" is very loosely based on an actual Victorian murder case. A young woman named Blanche Fuller is employed as the governess for the granddaughter of her rich uncle Simon, who has taken the surname "Fury" after inheriting a stately home and country estate from a distant relative, Adam Fury. Desperate for status and position, Blanche marries her widowed cousin Laurence, the father of the little girl she is looking after, but the marriage is not a happy one. Dissatisfied with the cold and unloving Laurence, she begins an affair with Philip Thorn, Simon's handsome steward.
Thorn, however, thinks that he should be more than just Simon's servant. He is the illegitimate son of the otherwise childless Adam Fury and believes that his parents were secretly married; if this were true he, and not Simon, would of course be the legitimate heir to the estate. When he fails to find any evidence of this secret marriage, he and Blanche conspire to murder Simon and Lawrence, believing that the local gypsies, who have a grudge against Simon, will be blamed for the killings. (The film's treatment of the gypsies, who are portrayed as violent, thieving vagabonds, would doubtless be regarded as offensive today). Thus begins a cycle of bloodshed and retribution. (One scene seems to be a deliberate borrowing from a very similar scene in "Gone with the Wind, made a few years earlier).
The British cinema during this period could often be overly restrained, even when dealing with subjects which might have called for a more openly emotional approach; "Brief Encounter" and "The Browning Version", for example, are two films which take the stiff-upper-lip approach to the subject of marital infidelity. Just occasionally, however, the British could go to the opposite extreme and produce some full-blooded, screaming melodrama, both in contemporary ("The Madonna of the Seven Moons") and in historical ("The Wicked Lady") dramas. Thorn is played by Stewart Granger, who seemed to specialise in handsome but dangerous rogues, especially in period dramas. (He also starred in "The Madonna of the Seven Moons"). Blanche is played by the lovely Valerie Hobson who, fifteen years later, was inadvertently to be caught up in a notorious scandal herself; she was the wife of John Profumo, the Conservative cabinet minister who was forced to resign over his affair with a call- girl.
Unlike some other historical melodramas from this period, such as "The Wicked Lady" or the American-made "Dragonwyck", "Blanche Fury" abandons the gloomy, Gothic, film-noir-influenced black- and-white look for vivid colour. (Like "An Ideal Husband" it can perhaps be seen as an early example of the "heritage cinema" style). It shows, moreover, just how well this alternative approach could work. Rather than using a dark, gloomy style to emphasise the dark deeds of Blanche and Thorn, director Marc Allegret chooses to contrast those deeds with the beauty of the rolling English countryside (on the Derbyshire-Staffordshire borders) and the grandeur of a Georgian stately home (called Clare Hall in the film, but actually Wootton Lodge). Allegret's reasoning was presumably that, as Thorn's motive for the murders was the sin of covetousness, it was necessary to show just what he was coveting in all its full glory. (Blanche seems to have been motivated by her guilty passion for Thorn as much as by financial greed, but in his case it is clear that he loved the estate far more than he loved her). Despite its political incorrectness, "Blanche Fury" remains a very watchable example of a passionate forties melodrama. 7/10
Thorn, however, thinks that he should be more than just Simon's servant. He is the illegitimate son of the otherwise childless Adam Fury and believes that his parents were secretly married; if this were true he, and not Simon, would of course be the legitimate heir to the estate. When he fails to find any evidence of this secret marriage, he and Blanche conspire to murder Simon and Lawrence, believing that the local gypsies, who have a grudge against Simon, will be blamed for the killings. (The film's treatment of the gypsies, who are portrayed as violent, thieving vagabonds, would doubtless be regarded as offensive today). Thus begins a cycle of bloodshed and retribution. (One scene seems to be a deliberate borrowing from a very similar scene in "Gone with the Wind, made a few years earlier).
The British cinema during this period could often be overly restrained, even when dealing with subjects which might have called for a more openly emotional approach; "Brief Encounter" and "The Browning Version", for example, are two films which take the stiff-upper-lip approach to the subject of marital infidelity. Just occasionally, however, the British could go to the opposite extreme and produce some full-blooded, screaming melodrama, both in contemporary ("The Madonna of the Seven Moons") and in historical ("The Wicked Lady") dramas. Thorn is played by Stewart Granger, who seemed to specialise in handsome but dangerous rogues, especially in period dramas. (He also starred in "The Madonna of the Seven Moons"). Blanche is played by the lovely Valerie Hobson who, fifteen years later, was inadvertently to be caught up in a notorious scandal herself; she was the wife of John Profumo, the Conservative cabinet minister who was forced to resign over his affair with a call- girl.
Unlike some other historical melodramas from this period, such as "The Wicked Lady" or the American-made "Dragonwyck", "Blanche Fury" abandons the gloomy, Gothic, film-noir-influenced black- and-white look for vivid colour. (Like "An Ideal Husband" it can perhaps be seen as an early example of the "heritage cinema" style). It shows, moreover, just how well this alternative approach could work. Rather than using a dark, gloomy style to emphasise the dark deeds of Blanche and Thorn, director Marc Allegret chooses to contrast those deeds with the beauty of the rolling English countryside (on the Derbyshire-Staffordshire borders) and the grandeur of a Georgian stately home (called Clare Hall in the film, but actually Wootton Lodge). Allegret's reasoning was presumably that, as Thorn's motive for the murders was the sin of covetousness, it was necessary to show just what he was coveting in all its full glory. (Blanche seems to have been motivated by her guilty passion for Thorn as much as by financial greed, but in his case it is clear that he loved the estate far more than he loved her). Despite its political incorrectness, "Blanche Fury" remains a very watchable example of a passionate forties melodrama. 7/10