Fanny by Gaslight (1944)

Fanny by Gaslight is a British romantic film drama first released in 1944, directed by Anthony Asquith.  The film stars Phyllis Calvert, James Mason, Wilfrid Lawson, Stewart Granger and Jean Kent.  It has also been released under the title: Man of Evil.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


In the 1880s, Fanny Hopwood returns to her home in London after spending ten years at a boarding school.  Her reunion with her parents and sister is shortlived, however.  Through an altercation with Lord Manderstoke, Fanny’s father is knocked down and killed by a horse-drawn carriage.  It becomes public knowledge that the Hopwoods’ income derived from a brothel which they ran on their premises, and the disgrace that ensues drives Fanny’s mother into an early grave.  Fanny is sent to work as a servant at the house of Clive Seymore, a prominent cabinet minister who reveals that he is Fanny’s natural father.   When Manderstoke threatens to provoke a scandal by revealing his connection with a brothel owner, Seymore commits suicide, having arranged for his friend and advisor Harry Somerford to take care of Fanny.  Harry discovers that he is in love with Fanny and asks her to marry him.  Once more, Manderstoke appears to threaten Fanny’s happiness by provoking her lover into accepting a duel...

The success of The Man in Grey prompted Gainsborough Pictures to make a costume melodrama in a similar vein, this time an adaptation of Michael Sadleir’s popular novel Fanny by Gaslight.  The film was directed by Anthony Asquith who was, at the time, one of Britain’s leading filmmakers, having distinguished himself with films such as the definitive screen adaptation of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (1938) and the wartime drama We Dive at Dawn (1943).  

Asquith had a genius for extracting the maximum value from a limited budget and Fanny by Gaslight has the look of a pretty lavish Hollywood production, with authentic-looking sets and costumes that richly evoke late Victorian England.  Solid performances from the three leads (Calvert, Stewart and Mason) just about compensate for the dry screenplay, although the story drags towards its middle and fails to deliver the impact of its source novel.  

The film is noted for its sexual candour, unusual in a British film of this period, and would have been well-received by a contemporary female audience.  Having had to hold the fort at home during the war, women were becoming empowered and, perhaps for the first time, saw that true sexual equality was within their grasp.  Fanny by Gaslight, with its strong central female character, may have fuelled this female liberationist sentiment and helped to light the  touchfire that led to the ensuing sexual revolution.

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