Saraband for Dead Lovers

One of Ealing Studios' most lavish period pieces. A sombre, romantic drama about the arranged marriage between the young Sophie (Greenwood) and the gross George Louis of Hanover, later George I of Britain (Bull, superbly repulsive), and the unhappy lady's dalliance with the dashing Konigsmark (Granger). Warner Brothers would have made it as a swashbuckling epic, but the English approach to these things was always different: the emphasis here is on power politics and doomed love, with special weight given to an anarchic carnival presided over by the Lord of Misrule, and to Flora Robson's role as an ageing lady of the court. Relph's designs are magnificent; Dearden's direction veers towards the pretentious (rain on stained glass makes a Madonna 'weep') but is for the most part functionally emotional.