Saraband

An enchanting tale of political marriages and schemes for prestige all at the expense of innocent people. It's a disturbing tale especially when you realize how many women in history must have felt as repressed and lonely as our heroine Sophie Dorothea. But it is a beautiful story of a little stolen happiness. Stewart Granger of course is always dashing in a costume drama. I recommend it for all the lovers of romantic tragedy.

Saraband for Dead Lovers tells the tragic story of Princess Sophia Dorothea of Celle who married Prince George Louis of Hanover most unhappily. Her's is one of the saddest stories concerning royalty ever.

This may have been Joan Greenwood's finest performance on screen. She's really the only decent person in this entire cast. For reasons of politics, she's rushed into a marriage with George Louis and has two children by him, a boy and girl. At the time this is all taking place in the 1680s, there's no reason to suspect that these kids will be nothing more than the Electoral Princes of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire.

But through their grandmother, played here by the indomitable French actress Francoise Rosay, they are descended from James I, the first king of the United Kingdoms of Scotland and England. She never lets them forget that for a moment.

Actually in fact a whole lot of people in 1689 would have to clear out of the way for Peter to become King of Great Britain. But over the next two decades, that's exactly what did happen. One thing the Hanover clan had going for them, they were firm Protestants and at that point there were too many people in Great Britain who had a vested interest in an unquestioned Protestant succession. It was the Hanoverian ace in the hole.

But before all these events occur Joan Greenwood falls head over heels for the dashing Swedish Count Philip of Konigsmarck as played by Stewart Granger. Granger probably plays Konigsmarck a lot better than he actually was, which was a military man who was not above a little bedroom politics to get what he wanted. Before becoming involved with the younger and more attractive Greenwood, Granger was providing a little nookie on the side to Flora Robson. Robson was the old mistress of the Duke Ernest Augustus played here by Frederick Valk, but the old girl wanted something a little livelier which Granger provided for a few favorable mentions. As in real life Granger moved away when he found something better and Flora reacted with the fury of a woman scorned.

Some of you might recognize a bit of Anna Karennina in this story and I wouldn't be surprised if Count Tolstoy took this story as inspiration when he wrote his epic classic.

Peter Bull and Joan Greenwood are the direct ancestors of the present monarch of the United Kingdom and her family. In 1715 Peter Bull became George I of Great Britain and distinguished himself by never learning to speak one drop of English. In fact all he saw Great Britain as was a cash cow to finance various continental Hanoverian ventures. But the little boy in this film grew up to be George II and so on and so on until Elizabeth II.

For what happens to lovers Granger and Greenwood you have to watch the film for. It's a story that the royals aren't exactly proud of.

Long before the film was made, I read the book it is based on, namely Konigsmark by A.E.W.Mason. I found the book enthralling and was more than eager to see the film, which turned out to be equally magical, exciting and romantic. To my mind the actors were superbly cast and the sets and costumes so beautifully designed that I felt I was living the events myself and the book and the historical period came vividly to life. I do hope that copies of the film have not been lost and that one day it will reappear perhaps in a remastered form. It is one of the gems of forties' British film-making and deserves to be seen by a present-day audience.

This is one of the most beautifully made Technicolor melodramas of the 1940's which loses nothing in maintaining historical accuracy. Look out for simply stunning performances from Peter Bull as the heir presumptive to the British throne and, above all, Flora Robson as Countess Platen. Stewart Granger (Konigsmark) is in top form and Francoise Rosay as the Electress Sophia is unforgettable. Dialogue is razor sharp throughout, the costumes are splendidly authentic and the sets are magnificent. The only area of weakness is Joan Greenwood's Sophie Dorothea, but she is supposed to be playing a tragic victim and maybe that's why critics wrote her off as a wet lettuce. It is much to be regretted that Saraband is not more widely available.

With most of the reviews here rating the film at 8 and above, the overall score of 6.6 seems to indicate an unreasonable bias in favour of the sort of reviewer who thinks that 'cack' is a useful characterisation of this masterwork, or who superciliously thinks that perhaps film students could just admire the brief technical mastery of the montage sequence - which is indeed brilliant editing - but who then dismissively junks the rest of the film.

Actually, most of the reviewers here actually do ample justice to a production which excels in all departments, and succeeds in being a romantic film which balances passion with such intelligence that a powerful and moving tragic sense is conveyed of real people trapped in a world of inhuman artifice and formality. I think Dearden's work here has a powerful impact that is at least the equal of David Lean's later epics. It also often even reminded me of the sad fate of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, like Koenigsmarck the commoner victim of a cruel aristocratic world, the reality of which is portrayed without illusions.

So why the poor overall rating? This really can't be justified, or tolerated, and I must be particularly lavish in my praise to help raise it up towards something nearer to it's true worth.

Once again, here in Britain, it was only thanks to the ever-excellent 'Talking Pictures TV' that we got a chance to see this neglected masterpiece at all. Really the general churlishness of modern neglect towards this utterly magnificent film is very hard to fathom.

Perhaps it is merely the jealousy of mediocrities who can never hope to grasp or emulate such an intelligent movie, in which the historical background is correctly but lightly established, or to command such a superbly well-constructed portrait of passion and intrigue in high places. In Britiain we seem to have developed an aversion to a past so often sweepingly dismissed as both hopelessly outmoded, as well as politically irredeemable, by an influential cultural cabal that wants to sweep away the inconveniently substantial achievements of earlier generations, which they find so uncongenial to their own doctrinaire, yet strangely insecure and intolerant ideals.

Objectively, the direction, screenplay, acting, costumes, set, camera-work and general mise-en-scene are of an uniformly high standard. Only a philistine, or a doctrinaire but shallow cineaste who feels threatened by having the grand achievements of his parent's and grandparent's generations, as it were, looking over his shoulder, could possibly dismiss such a magnificent and effective film. Some fellow-travellers of both regrettable tendencies seem to be sitting in judgement of this fine film here, but not enough of them to relegate it to a miserable 6.6, surely?