Elizabeth of Ladymead (1948) User Reviews

worthwhile movie

[mer52-1 · 7/10 · 26 July 2009]

Interesting idea, cleverly presented, well scripted and very well acted, great costumes and sets suitable for the different eras depicted. I've seen it a few times on TV and enjoyed how they spun out this tale comparing the same women and situation in different eras of history to show the evolving social attitudes. Unusual theme, and entertainingly done. Nagle is very good at portraying the different women. Same for the actors playing her stuffed shirt husbands And that mother in the suffragette segment is could inspire a good slap.

So I did enjoy it and really hope many people will watch this movie and thanks for reading my comment which I hope is a good one because it seem that the comments section of IMDb is very influential in influencing people to see movies and again i did like this move much and hope you did too.

The Four Elizabeths

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 3 July 2010]

Elizabeth Of Ladymead written by English playwright Frank Harvey is one of those films which provides its lead with a once in a lifetime opportunity to create multiple characters. The following year Alec Guinness had the same opportunity in Kind Hearts And Coronets to do the same thing that Anna Neagle has here.

The first Elizabeth we meet is the modern one, a woman anxiously expecting the return of husband Hugh Williams home from World War II. He's at loose ends, not really sure what he wants to do after five years of action. She's got ideas and the couple do get into a heated discussion. When Anna bumps into a wall and gets a concussion, the other Elizabeths Of Ladymead appear with the same post war problems after the Crimean, Boer, and World War I.

The four vignettes reflect the changing attitudes of British society, especially female British society over the year. Neagle does a marvelous job in creating the three imaginary Elizabeths, the proper Victorian woman of 1856, the anti-war and suffragette of 1903, and the pleasure crazed flapper of the Twenties. Of the four the flapper Anna and her husband Michael Lawrence are the best and definitely the most dramatic piece of the bunch. The other two imaginary husbands Bernard Lee of 1903 and Nicholas Phipps of 1855 are nicely done also.

Neagle gets to display all her talents, she sings as well, a nice version of Love's Old Sweet Song in the 1903 story before she starts starting her husband with new ideas about women's suffrage and the fact she thought the Boer War was not a good idea. Absolute blasphemy in her Edwardian home of the time.

Definitely Elizabeth Of Ladymead is for fans of Anna Neagle.

Leave it to Liz

[richardchatten · 5/10 · 7 June 2020]

That a blow to the head can propel you back into the past has become such a cliche it was even employed by Eric Cartman as a means to engineer a meeting with the Founding Fathers in the 2003 'South Park' episode 'I'm a Little Bit Country'!

Sumptuously produced in Technicolor and set in a huge Georgian mansion in Surrey. It's heroine wears a succession of fabulous costumes in which she introduces each episode sweeping down the main staircase until No.4, when she's out seeing in 1920 drunkenly dancing on a tabletop.

This potentially provocative subject naturally sinks like a stone under the leaden direction of Herbert Wilcox. But you haven't lived until you've seen Dame Anna pretending to be a flapper!

Anna Neagle Stars

[drednm · 28 September 2014]

Elizabeth of Ladymead (1948) offers star Anna Neagle 4 characters to play. In each vignette (she dreams after walking into a wall) she plays a wife awaiting her husband's return from war. The sly script is not so much about wars or even husbands (they never really change), but looks at how women have changed. All the women are named Elizabeth and all the stories occur at the country estate Ladymead.

The Crimean War wife is a proper little thing who bravely awaits and crochets doilies. The Boer War wife tries to stay active and becomes a suffragette. The WW I wife becomes a "lost generation" hedonist, and the WW II wife has become a capable business woman who turns the estate into a money-making farm. Neagle is terrific and almost shocking as the would-be flapper dressed in garish purples and greens and wearing war-paint makeup. The husbands are all played by different actors, as are the mothers (who move in during the various war years). Very entertaining. Hugh Williams play the current-day husband. Co-stars include Isabel Jeans, Edie Martin, and Jean Anderson. Oh, and the wall Neagle walks into used to be a doorway as seen in the earlier stories.

Deja Vu

[malcolmgsw · 3/10 · 4 August 2020]

It is little surprise that this film was a failure at the box office.Retelling the same story four times would strain the patience of a saint.It is extremely boring.

A Thrice-Told Tale

[JamesHitchcock · 4/10 · 11 June 2021]

The title character is Elizabeth Beresford, the wife of the owner of Ladymead House, a Georgian mansion in the Surrey countryside. The film opens in 1946. Elizabeth's army officer husband John has just returned from service in the Second World War. Upon his return, however, they find that their married life together is no longer as easy as it once was. Her wartime experiences have given Elizabeth a taste for greater freedom and independence, something not to the liking of her more conservative-minded husband.

There then follow a series of flashbacks to earlier historical periods. Each features a woman named Elizabeth Beresford who lives at Ladymead and is married to an army officer named John. The four Elizabeths are all played by the same actress, Anna Neagle, but the four Johns are played by four different actors. In each case John has returned from service in a war- the Crimean War, the Boer War and the First World War- to find that his wife wants more freedom and independence, something which is not to his liking. There are other similarities between the four episodes- each features a servant named Frank and a character named Tommy Wrigley.

The first three stories, in fact, are virtually identical, with minor variations to take account of the relevant time period; the Crimean War Elizabeth, for example, is inspired to want greater independence by the work of Florence Nightingale and her Boer War counterpart by the suffragette movement. In each case our sympathies tend to lie with Elizabeth rather than her reactionary old stick-in-the-mud of a husband whose idea of a good time is to re-live old campaigns by chewing the fat with his old Army comrade Major Wrigley.

Things change a bit in the post-World War I story. In this one our sympathies are definitely with John; the Elizabeth of this story, portrayed as a Jazz Age flapper, has been unfaithful to him while he has been away at the front with Tommy Wrigley, who in this timeline is not an army officer but a draft-dodging war profiteer, and possibly with other men as well. In despair, John commits suicide. Neagle, who would have been 44 when the film was made in 1948 looked too old for the part; flappers were girls in their late teens or twenties, and a middle-aged woman who tried to dress like them would have been regarded as ridiculous.

For three quarters of its length the film does no more than tell a virtually identical story three times over, but in different historical costumes. (One of its few virtues is that it is visually attractive). The First World War story could have made for an interesting film in its own right, but here it is dealt with in a very perfunctory way. At the end there are a few platitudes about the progress made in advancing women's rights, but this theme does not seem to be borne out by the story, which shows how the Elizabeth of 1946 is struggling with just the same sort of problems which faced her namesake from ninety years earlier. This is one of those films that I couldn't really see the point of. 4/10

A goof. According to the cast list, the Crimean War scenes take place in 1854. The dialogue, however, makes it clear that the war ended before John returned home, and the Crimean /war did not end until 1856.

A wonderful film....tour De force for Anna Naegle

[jtbwriter-1 · 9/10 · 13 January 2007]

This is a wonderful film...the four "Elizabeth's" through the years illustrate the changing role of the women of Ladymead as they try to make their way in the world. Having first seen this as during a showcase for the Equis Film collection, it really depicts the post-war British cinema well.

This is a tour De force for Anna Naegle...she changes her mannerisms and attitudes realistically. Contrary to another review, it is believable she would feel the influence of the previous "Elizabeth" and crash into what she thought was a door. When she remembers her experiences, Ms. Naegle appropriately relates what she learned. Great acting and story!

Confusing and really bad film

[jcholguin · 1/10 · 15 June 2001]

A strange and confusing film that goes thru four time periods of wars in England's history. Very dull and boring as you try to figure out the whole point of the film. It actually starts out well when the husband returns from WWII after a long five years. How things have changed in those five years. Suddenly the star of the film, Anna Neagle bumps into a wall and now we start time travel with Neagle as the only constant. This is the kind of movie that you fast forward alot.

A GREAT LITTLE FILM ABOUT THE WOMEN OF DIFFERENT WARS AND THE MEN WHO COME HOME TO THEM.

[JTBWRITER · 27 April 2002]

I loved this movie, especially Anna Neagle's performance as the four "Elizabeths", how each of these women coped with the men in their lives coming home from war and finding them changed, some for the worse (Betty is a bit of a tramp circa 1918!).

As a post war film, it works amazingly well, in particular the depiction of the attitudes of the soldiers expecting to step right in to their lives and surprise-no more "little woman"!

Great Equus Collection film-hope it comes out on video some day!

Excellent British Technicolor comedy

[cynthiahost · 10/10 · 8 June 2014]

Years ago, I remember, seeing this a lot of time on nostalgia channel.It was a shrunk color print,The scene where Anna is begging Nicholas Phip to except her as an equal,in post Crimean war sequence,I, remember seeing the red in that uniform so weak,bad print.But now It's been remastered from the original elements. It's A sparkling Technicolor print now and the uniform is so red it bleeds. Now Ladymead looks better than ever,the costumes and art direction is superb.Anna Neagle,who later became Dame Anna Neagle, plays four women,in four periods,The Crimean war ,the Boer war,right after the end of world war 1 .a day before 1920 and after world war2 .She pro trays women ,whom when they got married were originally submissive to their husbands,The first one 1946,Sir John Beresford,1946, played by the handsome Hugh Williams ,the 1854 version played by Nicholas Phip, the 1903 version played by James bond boss,when he was young,Bernard Lee.Michael Lawrence in 1919, but, when these men came back the women have changed.These women want more responsibility and to be equals with them.This angers the husbands.Then there's the interfering friend who show upright after the husband come home from war, delaying Liz, Betty,Beth,Elizabeth from being alone with her husband.The only problem is the 1919 right before 1920,The Betty sequence,there's some inaccuracy of the period.The music that Betty played,on her record was the Sheik of Araby,which was not published until after 1920.Women began to get more wild right after 1920,by the mid 20's,I think.Not before the end of 1919.Women I don't think started wearing heavy make up until after 1920.The Betty character was wearing heavy make up in 1919.All in all this was a good example of a British Technicolor production.If Natalie Kalmus did not try to sell the Technicolor process to Britain,this film would have Duffey color,which was not a very good color process, 06/08/14

Probably Would Have Made A Better Mini-Series

[andyrobert · 8/10 · 6 December 2021]

At first, I thought this film was going to be about an aristocratic Army officer returning from the Second World War, finding it hard to settle down into civilian life and coping with Peace, as opposed to War. However, as soon as the officer was reunited with his wife, you realised that there was going to be something wrong with their relationship.

His wife, having been alone in their Georgian mansion house with no staff to help her manage the estate, had a boring War and was having to do everything herself. While the husband wanted to settle down to a simple life in the country, she wanted to give up rural life, hoping that her husband would return to Politics, where she would be able to enjoy a more active and useful life in a London fancy apartment.

However, the film came to be more than just a social drama about a married couple adjusting to life after six years of War. Anna Neagle, playing the part of the wife, after being knocked unconscious seemed to start dreaming about her life being paralleled by married couples in the same situation, with the husband coming home from different wars stretching back over 100 years.

Each husband was played by a different actor wearing a different uniform associated with the war that they had just fought in. However, in every part of the anthology, Anna Neagle plays the wife. The parts of the husband's friend and wife's mother were also played by different actors and actresses.

The first husband was played by Nicholas Phipps, an actor who usually appeared in supporting roles in many British film comedies during the 1950s and 1960s. He wore the uniform of a cavalry officer who had just returned from the Crimean War in 1854 and was present at the Battle of Balaclava. This short part of the anthology is about the chauvinistic husband being very disturbed at his wife wanting to join Florence Nightingale as a nurse. He advocated that wives' and women belong in the home - looking beautiful - and not soaking up the dubious glory of life on the battlefield.

The second husband was played by Bernard Lee, who later became more famous as 'M' in the series of James Bond films. He wore the uniform of another cavalry officer, but this time he was an officer having just returned from the Boer War in 1903. This part of the anthology was about his disapproval of his wife having ably managed his estate by herself and her controversial support for Woman's Suffrage and her even more controversial lack of support for the War in South Africa, advocating that the Boers were quite justified in the way they were fighting for their farms, land and their own way of life.

The third husband was played by an actor called Michael Laurence in a rare film appearance. As well as looking like Errol Flynn, he wore the uniform of an army captain who had just returned from France, having experienced the grim realities of life in the trenches and the tragic aftermath of the First World War. This part of the anthology was about the husband coming home, from the worst war that had ever been fought up to that time. He was miserably greeted to an empty house and a wife who had become an amoral wastrel and flapper. Without giving to much away, this was the most tragic part of the film.

The last part of the film shows Anna Neagle regaining conscious and telling her husband about her dream and how they came to understand each other again, adjusting to each other's needs and how they both wished to spend their life together.

Throughout the film the underlying theme seemed to be about women's emancipation. In 1854 was about their subjugation; in 1903 it was about how women's freedom and independence was being fought for; and in 1919 it showed how it had all gone too far.

By 1945 the film seemed to be trying to say how everything had gone back to where it was before.

8 out of 10.