The Gainsborough melodramas were a sequence of films produced by the British film studio Gainsborough Pictures between 1943 and 1947 that conformed to a melodramatic style.[1] The melodramas were not a film series but an unrelated sequence of films that had similar themes that were usually developed by the same film crew and frequently recurring actors who played similar characters in each. They were mostly based on popular books by female novelists and they encompassed costume dramas, such as The Man in Grey (1943) and The Wicked Lady (1945), and modern-dress dramas, such as Love Story (1944) and They Were Sisters (1945). The popularity of the films with audiences peaked mid-1940s when cinema audiences consisted primarily of women.[2] The influence of the films led to other British producers releasing similarly themed works, such as The Seventh Veil (1945), Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945), Hungry Hill (1947), The White Unicorn (1947), Idol of Paris (1948), and The Reluctant Widow (1950) and often with the talent that made Gainsborough melodramas successful.[1]
- ^ a b Brooke, Michael. (2014). Gainsborough Melodrama. Screenonline British Film Institute. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
- ^ Strong Women and Dark Doings: 'Three Wicked Melodramas from Gainsborough Pictures' - PopMatters