Eclipse from the Criterion Collection

Three Wicked Melodramas from Gainsborough Pictures

Edition no. 36

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Release Date: Tuesday, 09 October 2012
Country of Release: USA
MSRP: $44.95

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The Man in Grey | Madonna of the Seven Moons | The Wicked Lady

Licensor Information

ITV Global Entertainment

Directed by: Leslie Arliss, Arthur Crabtree

Featuring: Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert, Stewart Granger, James Mason, Patricia Roc, Harry Scott, Martita Hunt, Helen Hayes, Beatrice Varley

During the 1940s, realism reigned in British cinema—but not at Gainsborough Pictures. The studio, which had been around since the twenties, found new success with a series of pleasurably preposterous costume melodramas. Audiences ate up these overheated films, which featured a stable of charismatic stars, including James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, Stewart Granger, and Phyllis Calvert. Though the movies were immensely profitable in wartime and immediately after, Gainsborough did not outlive the decade. This set brings together a trio of the studio’s most popular films from this era—florid, visceral tales of secret identities, multiple personalities, and romantic betrayals.

Year: 1943 | 1945
Time: 116 | 110 | 104 min.