The Eclipse Viewer – Episode 33 – Three Wicked Melodramas from Gainsborough Pictures

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:28:49 — 81.8MB)

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 36: Three Wicked Melodramas from Gainsborough Pictures.

About the films:

During the 1940s, realism reigned in British cinema—but not at Gainsborough Pictures. The studio, which had been around since the twenties, found new success with a series of pleasurably preposterous costume melodramas. Audiences ate up these overheated films, which featured a stable of charismatic stars, including James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, Stewart Granger, and Phyllis Calvert. Though the movies were immensely profitable in wartime and immediately after, Gainsborough did not outlive the decade. This set brings together a trio of the studio’s most popular films from this era—florid, visceral tales of secret identities, multiple personalities, and romantic betrayals.

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Episode Links

Gainsborough Pictures

• BFI Screenonline studio history by Sue Harper
• Gainsborough Melodramas: A Unique Phenomenon by Gerry Cobb
• Project Gutenberg article
• Guardian article about the conversion of Gainsborough Studios to luxury flats (2001) by Steve Rose
• The Hitchcock Zone–Gainsborough Pictures
• The Hitchcock Zone–On Memorialising Gainsborough Studios by Pam Cook
• The Guardian: “The Final Reel” by David Thomson
• Who is Leslie Arliss? – BFI ScreenOnline Biography
• Who is Arthur Crabtree? – BFI ScreenOnline Biography

Box Set Reviews

• New York Times review by Dave Kehr
• Steamy Screen: The Melodramas of Gainsborough Pictures by Kenneth George Godwin
• Criterion Confessions review by Jamie S. Rich
• PopMatters review by Sarah Boslaugh
• DVD Savant review by Glenn Erickson
• The Morton Report review by Chaz Lipp
• New York Times review by Dave Kehr

The Man in Grey

• David’s Journey through the Eclipse Series review
• Cinema Enthusiast review by Catherine Stebbins
• 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die review by Kim Wilson
• BFI ScreenOnline review by Michael Brooke
• New York Times review (1945) by Bosley Crowther

Madonna of the Seven Moons

• David’s Journey through the Eclipse Series review
• Cinema Enthusiast review by Catherine Stebbins
• New York Times review by Hal Erickson

The Wicked Lady

• David’s Journey through the Eclipse Series review
• Cinema Enthusiast review by Catherine Stebbins
• The Girl with the White Parasol review by Aubyn Eli
• BFI ScreenOnline review by Michael Brooke

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 43: Agnès Varda in California

Contact us

• Twitter
• Email: theeclipseviewer (at) gmail.com
• David Blakeslee ( Twitter / Website )
• Trevor Berrett ( Twitter / Website )