Madonna of the Seven Moons
| Madonna of the Seven Moons | |
|---|---|
UK promotional poster
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| Directed by | Arthur Crabtree |
| Produced by | R.J. Minney |
| Screenplay by | Roland Pertwee |
| Based on |
The Madonna of Seven Moons by Margery Lawrence |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Hans May |
| Cinematography | Jack E. Cox |
| Edited by | Lito Carruthers |
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Production
company |
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Release date
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22 January 1945 1947 (France) |
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Running time
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110 min |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £125,000 |
| Box office | 675,949 admissions (France) |
Madonna of the Seven Moons is a 1945 British drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree for Gainsborough Pictures and starring Phyllis Calvert, Stewart Granger and Patricia Roc. The film was produced by Rubeigh James Minney, with cinematography from Jack Cox and screenplay by Roland Pertwee. It was one of the Gainsborough melodramas.
A buried trauma from the past holds the key to the disappearance of a respectable married woman. Maddalena has a dual personality which leads her to forsake her husband and daughter, to flee to the house of the Seven Moons in Florence as the mistress of a jewel thief.
The film was based on a novel by Margery Lawrence which had been published in 1931.
Film rights were bought by Gaumont British in 1938 who wanted to turn it into a vehicle for Renée Saint-Cyr, but that movie was never made.
Plans to film it were re-activated in 1944 following the box office success of The Man in Grey and Fanny by Gaslight. It was the first film directed by Arthur Crabtree. He had spent many years previously working for Gainsborough as a cinematographer. Phyllis Calvert later recalled:
Arthur was a very good cinematographer, but there weren't enough directors, and so people who were scriptwriters or were behind the camera were suddenly made directors. It wasn't that Crabtree was an unsatisfactory director, just that we found ourselves very satisfactory - we did it ourselves. But the fact that he had been a lighting cameraman was wonderful for us, because he knew exactly how to photograph us.
The movie was very popular at the British box office. In 1946 readers of the Daily Mail voted the film their third most popular British movie from 1939 to 1945.
Stewart Granger later called the film "terrible".
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Wikipedia