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The Bad Lord Byron (1949) More at IMDbPro »

Overview

User Rating:
4.5/10   47 votes
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Director:
David MacDonald
Writers:
Paul Holt (writer)
Laurence Kitchin (writer)
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Contact:
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Release Date:
26 August 1949 (Finland) more
Genre:
Drama more
Plot:
Seriously ill on a military campaign in Greece, Lord Byron dreams of being judged on his death between being on the one hand a poet and soldier... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
User Comments:
mad, bad and dangerous to know more (2 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
Dennis Price ... Lord Byron
Mai Zetterling ... Teresa Guiccioli
Joan Greenwood ... Lady Caroline Lamb
Linden Travers ... Augusta Leigh
Sonia Holm ... Annabella Milbanke
Raymond Lovell ... John Hobhouse
Leslie Dwyer ... Fletcher
Denis O'Dea ... Prosecuting Counsel
Irene Browne ... Lady Melbourne
Virgilio Teixeira ... Pietro Gamba
Ernest Thesiger ... Count Guiccioli
Gerard Heinz ... Austrian Officer
Cyril Chamberlain ... Defending Counsel
Wilfrid Hyde-White ... Mr. Hopton
Henry Oscar ... Count Gamba
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Additional Details

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Runtime:
USA:85 min
Country:
UK
Language:
English
Color:
Black and White
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono
Certification:
Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15
Company:
Sydney Box Productions more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
In the scenes showing Byron's London club, the poet's own dining table and chairs are shown. more

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User Comments

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful.
mad, bad and dangerous to know, 23 October 2001
Author: petershelleyau from Sydney, Australia

This Rank period drama directed by David MacDonald begins with George Byron on his deathbed, then taking us to a purgatorial courtroom where a faceless judge presides over his fate. Is he to be remembered by posterity as a poet and a liberator, or a seducer and libertine? Witnesses are brought to testify in flashbacks with prosecution clad in black and defence in white, with the set reminiscent of the stylised courtroom used in John Ford's Mary of Scotland. However the legitimacy of this treatment is undermined by the performance of Dennis Price as Byron. Price plays his womaniser like a vampirish Oscar Wilde, with an odd scene of him sharing a glass with the brother of a woman he is involved with, a mysogynistic conversation with a friend - "You're far too bright a flame to be extinguished by a woman's fan" - and a pop psychological explanation given about how his mother treated him miserably and he mistreats women as revenge. It's a pity that the only woman of the 4 associated with Byron presented here as an individual is the one the first to be disposed of. This kind of paper thin betrayal and the dialogue being a series of howlers - "She's purer than the driven snow", "Your British sense of fair play is implacable", "You can't keep an eagle in a cage" - makes the film unintentionally hilarious until tedium sets in. It's no coincidence that the testimony of the defence's witnesses reduce Price to dull sincerity. The society presented here is one which races to buy Byron's first collection of poetry which sells out the first morning it is on sale, then snubs him when his wife leaves him and he seeks overseas exile for a crime presumably on a par with Wilde. Price delivers a speech to the troops which is meant to be inspiring but we observe that it might be more effective if he could speak the troops' language or vice versa, and though Byron moans about his being lame we can't see how it has held him back any. As Lady Caroline Lamb, Joan Greenwood easily steals the movie. Her throaty voice makes her very likeable, and MacDonald gives her a good scene where she cuts her wrist to get Byron's attention, as well pulling the camera back slowly to frame she and Price in long shot for their first kiss.

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