This Victorian melodrama has enough plot to fill several volumes and is, what you might call, 'a rum yarn'. Anthony Asquith's "Fanny By Gaslight" was based on a best-selling novel by Michael Sadleir and was a huge hit in its native Britain and it's an exemplary example of its kind. Phyllis Calvert is Fanny and let's just say what happens to her in the course of this tale would put any Dickens heroine to shame or to quote Thelma Ritter, 'all that's missing is the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end'. Stewart Granger is the young man who loves her and James Mason, the nasty brute who would like to ruin her and others in the fine cast include Wilfred Lawson, Jean Kent, Margaretta Sccott, Cathleen Nesbitt and Nora Swinburne. Given that it's basically a soap opera, Asquith handles it with considerable aplomb and the performances are first-rate. If it's a guilty pleasure, it's certainly a highly enjoyable one.
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