The second Gainsborough costume melodrama (rushed into production after the huge, unexpected success of Regency romance THE MAN IN GREY)is a more sober work than it's predecessor. Set in the constricting Victorian class system, FANNY seems to be striving for greater realism than THE MAN IN GREY, in part due to the critical whipping of the former film as "trash". Three of of GREY's main line-up return: Phyllis Calvert (playing put-upon heroine Fanny), Stewart Granger (Harry) and the one, the only James Mason (Lord Manderstoke).
As with GREY and MADONNA OF THE SEVEN MOONS, the film engages in doubling of it's characters to make it's point. FANNY depicts a Victorian England that is polite and pretty on the outside, yet teeming with moral decay on it's underbelly. From the opening shot where a young Fanny rolls a ball into her father's The Shades (a den of inequity), good/bad, poor/wealthy, innocence/depravity is juxtaposed. Fanny herself is not immune to this, as, after her father (John Laurie) is killed by Lord Manderstoke (who gets off easily at the fixed trial), she discover he's not really her father at all, and she is actually the illegitimate product of a love affair between her mother and a man who is now a high-ranking politician. Her biological father secretly arranges for Fanny to live with him, and in time reveals himself. However, personal and public lives collide as his horrible wife (who is having an affair with Manderstoke)threatens to expose him if her doesn't give her a divorce. He commits suicide, and Fanny is left with no-one to turn to but the dashing Harry...and Lord Manderstoke still lurks ominously in the background...
Calvert again catches the audience's sympathy as Fanny- she, like Olivia de Havilland, could make these heroines believable. Granger seems to be lacking most of the screen presence and charisma he brought to THE MAN IN THE GREY (where he and Calvert made a lovely couple), perhaps it is his stuffy role as the obligatory romantic hero. Mason dominates every scene he appears- sexy, sadistic, sardonic, cruel yet possibly sympathetic as Manderstoke. His sadistic charm is best illustrated in a great scene with the adulterous wife- Wife: Really, don't you care for me AT ALL? Mason: (Looking up at her, while twirling a flower in his fingers)No. (This is said in his inimitable voice). He is completely dastardly, yet at the same time, irresistibly attractive. Jean Kent gets one of her early key roles as Lucy, Fanny's childhood friend who offers herself to Manderstoke. The doubling is reminiscent of THE MAN IN GREY (Lockwood and Calvert), yet Lucy is much less callous than Hesther. Instead, she's a victim of Victorian society and her own weaknesses.
As with GREY and MADONNA OF THE SEVEN MOONS, the film engages in doubling of it's characters to make it's point. FANNY depicts a Victorian England that is polite and pretty on the outside, yet teeming with moral decay on it's underbelly. From the opening shot where a young Fanny rolls a ball into her father's The Shades (a den of inequity), good/bad, poor/wealthy, innocence/depravity is juxtaposed. Fanny herself is not immune to this, as, after her father (John Laurie) is killed by Lord Manderstoke (who gets off easily at the fixed trial), she discover he's not really her father at all, and she is actually the illegitimate product of a love affair between her mother and a man who is now a high-ranking politician. Her biological father secretly arranges for Fanny to live with him, and in time reveals himself. However, personal and public lives collide as his horrible wife (who is having an affair with Manderstoke)threatens to expose him if her doesn't give her a divorce. He commits suicide, and Fanny is left with no-one to turn to but the dashing Harry...and Lord Manderstoke still lurks ominously in the background...
Calvert again catches the audience's sympathy as Fanny- she, like Olivia de Havilland, could make these heroines believable. Granger seems to be lacking most of the screen presence and charisma he brought to THE MAN IN THE GREY (where he and Calvert made a lovely couple), perhaps it is his stuffy role as the obligatory romantic hero. Mason dominates every scene he appears- sexy, sadistic, sardonic, cruel yet possibly sympathetic as Manderstoke. His sadistic charm is best illustrated in a great scene with the adulterous wife- Wife: Really, don't you care for me AT ALL? Mason: (Looking up at her, while twirling a flower in his fingers)No. (This is said in his inimitable voice). He is completely dastardly, yet at the same time, irresistibly attractive. Jean Kent gets one of her early key roles as Lucy, Fanny's childhood friend who offers herself to Manderstoke. The doubling is reminiscent of THE MAN IN GREY (Lockwood and Calvert), yet Lucy is much less callous than Hesther. Instead, she's a victim of Victorian society and her own weaknesses.