Lady Caroline Lamb (1972)

Director:

Robert Bolt

Writer:

Robert Bolt (writer)

Release Date:

25 December 1973 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama | History | Romance

Plot:

A noblewoman doomed to a loveless marriage falls into a scandalous affair with the dashing Lord Byron. |

Plot Keywords:

Lord | Lord Byron | Portrait | Boxer | Applause

Awards:

Nominated for 2 BAFTA Film Awards. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Sarah Miles	...	Lady Caroline Lamb
Jon Finch	...	William Lamb
Richard Chamberlain	...	Lord Byron
John Mills	...	Canning
Margaret Leighton	...	Lady Melbourne
Pamela Brown	...	Lady Bessborough
Silvia Monti	...	Miss Millbanke
Ralph Richardson	...	King George IV
Laurence Olivier	...	Duke of Wellington
Caterina Boratto
Peter Bull	...	Minister
Charles Carson	...	Potter
Sonia Dresdel	...	Lady Pont
Nicholas Field	...	St. John
Felicity Gibson	...	Girl in Blue

Also Known As:

Peccato d'amore (Italy)

Runtime:

123 min

Country:

UK | Italy

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Canada:14+ (Ontario) | Australia:M (alternate rating) | Australia:PG (original rating) | USA:PG | UK:A (original rating) | UK:15 (video rating)

Filming Locations:

Brocket Hall, Lemsford, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Company:

G.E.C.

Trivia:

The last cinema film of Michael Wilding.

Quotes:

ADC to Wellington: [Caroline has just slashed her wrists] Good God, your Grace! She just tried to kill herself!
Duke of Wellington: Nonsense, me boy. No difficulty about killing yourself, if you really mean to.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Films of Robert Bolt (1972)

Melodramatic & inaccurate

As a work of fiction, this is an unexceptional piece of melodrama with a familiar story: the heroine falls in love with a man who abandons her cruelly. Then she does it again, and finally dies miserable and alone. Unfortunately, the main characters in this story are *supposed* to be real people. In the course of presenting Caroline Lamb (played by his wife) as a woman wronged, Bolt rides roughshod over historical facts and turns a blind eye to some of her less noble moments. In particular Lord Byron, her sometime lover, is presented as a poorly researched caricature. (On the bright side, the crippled leg that plagued him throughout his life has miraculously vanished.)

It is true, as depicted in the film, that 'Caro' and Byron had an affair, and that Byron was the one to break it off as she became more and more obsessed with him. But the film completely fails to note that she went on to conduct a vicious campaign of revenge against him that lasted for considerably longer than the original affair, and played a major part in ruining his reputation in England with accusations of crimes up to and including murder. Byron was certainly a flawed human being, but Bolt magnifies and distorts those flaws while ignoring many of Lady Caroline's.

It appears that Bolt is more interested in making a good story than in representing the life of the real Caroline Lamb, which would be forgivable if he *had* created a good story. But there's nothing exceptional about this one, not even the costumes; just a run-of-the-mill "woman ruined by heartless men" tale. If it's 19th-century fiction you're after, a Jane Austen dramatization would be a better choice; if it's historical accuracy you like, you won't find it here.