Fanny by Gaslight was a ribald novel. This film adaptation was racy for its time.
Now it looks stilted and rather tame.
Fanny had a charmed life until her father is killed in a brawl with the dastardly Lord Manderstroke (James Mason.)
It turns out that her father was not her real father and he ran a brothel.
Fanny now in reduced circumstances works as a maid but to her real father, a member of the government.
She discovers that his wife, her stepmother is cheating on him. She is carrying on with lecherous Lord Manderstroke who also has a lusty eye for Fanny.
After the suicide of her real father. Her circumstances are even more reduced, especially after her failed relationship with Henry Somerford (Stewart Granger) the parliamentary secretary to her late father.
The movie from the then noted Gainsborough studios is really about the up and down life of Fanny and how she has to deal with social conventions of the time and class divide.
That comes to the fore when Fanny deals with Henry's sister. The story is almost Dickensian but racier as Fanny has spent time in and around brothels over the years.
Now it looks stilted and rather tame.
Fanny had a charmed life until her father is killed in a brawl with the dastardly Lord Manderstroke (James Mason.)
It turns out that her father was not her real father and he ran a brothel.
Fanny now in reduced circumstances works as a maid but to her real father, a member of the government.
She discovers that his wife, her stepmother is cheating on him. She is carrying on with lecherous Lord Manderstroke who also has a lusty eye for Fanny.
After the suicide of her real father. Her circumstances are even more reduced, especially after her failed relationship with Henry Somerford (Stewart Granger) the parliamentary secretary to her late father.
The movie from the then noted Gainsborough studios is really about the up and down life of Fanny and how she has to deal with social conventions of the time and class divide.
That comes to the fore when Fanny deals with Henry's sister. The story is almost Dickensian but racier as Fanny has spent time in and around brothels over the years.