Bad Lord Byron

Bad Lord Byron
by David MacDonald

List Price: ~~$14.99~~
Category: VHS Video
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Product details

Actor: Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Linden Travers, Mai Zetterling, Sonia Holm
Director: David MacDonald
Producer: Alfred Roome
Producer: Aubrey Baring
Writer: Anthony Thorne
Writer: Laurence Kitchin
Writer: Paul Holt
Writer: Peter Quennell
Writer: Terence Young
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Black & White, NTSC
Running Time: 85 minutes
Release Date: 1994-08-29
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Hollywood Select Video
Studio: Hollywood Select Video

VHS Movie Reviews of Bad Lord Byron

Movie Review: Costume melodrama
Summary: 4 Stars

Panned by the critics but well received by many British filmgoers on its first release in 1949 (the Daily Mirror called it a 'film hit' and fans in Film Illustrated wrote that the acting was superb) this remains a very controversial film, as can be seen from the wide variety of comments on this page! Its bad critical reception in its country of origin probably explains why at the time of writing there is no video or DVD of the film available for UK viewers, but it is available in the US and in Germany (dubbed into German). Yet the film is not all bad. No, it is not the sort of thing film critics like -- it's a costume melodrama aimed at the 'popular market'. When this film was first issued, less than four years after the end of the Second World War, the British were still rationed for food and clothing and conditions of life were very austere. The world depicted in this film represented the desires of many filmgoers. The ladies (Joan Greenwood, Sonia Holm, Mai Zetterling), live in a world of plenty and wealth, wear beautiful dresses and flirt with the elegant, sophisticated, gorgeous Dennis Price as Lord Byron. It's escapism, it's a beautiful spectacle, it's romantic, it's unreal, it's laid back and relaxed, it's a dream ... My teenage son said it was boring, but I liked it. That probably says it all!

Movie Review: Yeegh!
Summary: 5 Stars

Woh G, this is money! I love this movie! Word!

Movie Review: mad, bad and dangerous to know
Summary: 1 Stars

This Rank period drama directed by David MacDonald begins with George Byron on his deathbed, then taking us to a pergatorial 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 mysognystic conversation with a friend - "You?re far too bright a flame to be extinguished by a woman?s fan" - and a pop psychological explaination 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 fairplay is inplacable", "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. Oh, and the verdict for the courtcase? It?s one of those you decide?s.

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