Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageFanny by Gaslight (1944)
Director: Anthony Asquith
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
'Mee-ow, 'ere we are again,' chorus the clientele of the Jolly Bargee, one of the stops on our long-suffering heroine's circuit of 1880s London. And 'ere we are again indeed, with this time the fastidious Asquith mediating the addictive pleasures of a Gainsborough period melodrama. Poor Fanny's bourgeois cocoon is exploded in the opening scenes when her beloved Papa is killed in a brawl, whereupon it emerges that he was a brothel keeper, not her real father anyway and, on top of that, Mama is at death's door. Much fun is to be had from Fanny's subsequent snakes-and-ladders odyssey back to that position in society which her accent requires, with Mason erupting into the plot at various points to visit further woe on the plucky young woman. The title (from a novel by Michael Sadleir) was the source of much ribald patter for years afterwards.Author: BBa
Cast & crew
Director: Anthony Asquith
Producer: Edward Black
Cast: Phyllis Calvert, James Mason, Wilfrid Lawson, Stewart Granger, Jean Kent, Margaretta Scott, Cathleen Nesbitt full cast
Genre(s): Period/Swashbucklers
Duration: 107 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Review: Penélope Cruz more raunchy than ever in 'Nine'
Dave Calhoun reports on Rob Marshall's Oscar-touted musical with Daniel Day-Lewis playing a troubled director
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Jim Jarmusch on 'The Limits of Control'
Jim Jarmusch has followed ‘Broken Flowers’ with an esoteric crime mystery. Dave Calhoun speaks to him from his New York office
Richard Linklater on 'Me and Orson Welles'
Dave Calhoun meets the 49-year-old, Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater to discuss his new comedy
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now