Wikipedia

The Gypsy and the Gentleman

The Gypsy and the Gentleman is a 1958 British costume drama film directed by Joseph Losey. It stars Melina Mercouri and Keith Michell.[2][3][4]

The Gypsy and the Gentleman
Directed byJoseph Losey
Screenplay byJanet Green
Based onDarkness I Leave You
1956 novel
by Nina Warner Hooks
Produced byMaurice Cowan
executive
Earl St john
Starring
CinematographyJack Hildyard
Edited byReginald Beck
Music byHans May
Production
company
Distributed byRank Film Distributors
Release dates
  • 15 January 1958 (1958-01-15) (London, UK)
Running time
103 min.
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budgetnearly $1 million[1]

Plot

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The beautiful and fiery gypsy Belle (Melina Mercouri) marries Regency playboy Sir Paul Deverill (Keith Michell) for his money. Unbeknownst to her he has squandered his fortune and is desperately in debt. When Deverill's sister Sarah (June Laverick) inherits a fortune, the couple hatch a plan to kidnap her. Sarah is loved by the young Dr Forrester and is looked after by a retired actress, Mrs Haggard. A corrupt lawyer, Brook, also gets involved.

Deverill eventually sides with his sister against Belle and her gypsy lover, Jess. He rescues his sister and crashes into the water with Belle. Bella watches Jess flee, and then she and Deverill drown in the river.[5]

Cast

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Production

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Joseph Losey had been offered a three-picture deal with Rank at the recommendation of Dirk Bogarde; the director was also admired by James Archibald who was a Rank executive. Losey was going to make a film with Bogarde, Bird of Paradise based on The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo. He was sent a number of scripts which he rejected, eventually settling on The Gypsy and the Gentleman. "I didn't like it much, but I thought well, I can’t go on turning down scripts," said Losey. "I’ve got to work — and I can make something out of this."[6][7]

It was Losey's idea to cast Melinda Mercouri, who he remembered from Stella.[8] Mercouri later wrote she was "scraping the bottom of the barrel when" offered the job and during filming "knew I was giving a poor performance, but" Losey "never stopped trying... But I just couldn’t make it. I couldn’t connect with the character."[9][10]

Michael Craig declined the lead, and was replaced by Keith Michell, who was also under contract to Rank.[11]

Muriel Pavlow, who was under contract to Rank, was offered a role but turned it down "foolishly because, although it was a rubbishy film, it was directed by Joseph Losey.",[12]

Losey said "I had decided that we should make an extravagant melodrama and at the same time try and present something of the real feeling of the Regency period where there were no toilets, and people bathed once a week if they were lucky, in a tub, and the gentlemen, when they got drunk, pissed in the fireplace. Of a period that was cruel and dirty and not just lovely and elegant — with brutal boxing matches and all the rest."[13]

Filming took place from 11 June to September 1957 at Pinewood Studios and on location at Oxhey. Losey did not enjoy filming, calling produced Maurice Cowan a "monster" although he felt with the cinematographer, Mercouri, the designer and editor " we were really able to make something." Losey said he "had no artistic control, but it had been agreed that I would control the cutting of the picture, the music and the general finishing. The studio in general wasn’t very happy. They didn’t understand what I was doing; they didn’t understand what Melina’s virtues were — and she has many, chiefly enormous energy."[14]

Losey says that when the film finished "it became subject to horrible executive interferences from all kinds of sources". He fell out with John Davis and Rank insisted on a score by Hans May which the director said "changed the mood and the pace to such a degree, that for the first and only time in my life I left the picture before it was finished."[15]

Reception

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Variety magazine wrote:

Harking, back to the British film days of such successful pix as “The Wicked Lady" and “The Man in Grey,” there Is genuine reason to believe that “Gypsy” may make an equal financial sweep in Britain. Nevertheless; this is a dusty, sprawling, no-holds-barred costume melodrama, which utilizes every possible cliche in the romantic “meller” hook. Yet it has appeal because of its simple attack on b.o. potentiality; It gets away with it because. a good cast plays it for more than it is worth. The slightest case of “tongue-in-cheek” and this old-fashioned drama would have fallen flat, on its face.[16]

Losey said the film failed in at the box office. "I think it could have been a success, with very little differences: just a proper score, proper cutting, and proper handling of it. I think the images are very satisfying, but otherwise I don’t like it."[17]

“I think it’s largely a piece of junk, and I’d just as soon nobody saw it again.”—Josey Losey in a 1971 interview with critic Gordon Gow[18][19][20]

John Davis, managing director of Rank, then cancelled the rest of Losey's contract. "He settled it, as I recall, for one-tenth of what they contractually owed me," said Lopsey. "And everybody in England knew that I had, in effect, been fired. So there again, it didn’t establish me in England."[21][22]

Theme

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The film marks the first film in which Losey approaches the class themes that would become central to his subsequent work, particularly in The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971)[23] An American by birth and upbringing (he was born to a wealthy and politically conservative family in La Crosse, Wisconsin), Losey adopted leftist and class-oriented views during the 1930s.[24][25]

Arriving in England in 1951, age 42, he was “impressed by the powerful hold of the class system over English society.” Losey attempted to fully examine aspects of class hierarchy in The Gypsy and the Gentleman, but was cautioned not to do so by the studio. Biographer Foster Hirsch observes that nonetheless, “Losey’s tentative reading of the class theme gives the film whatever interest it has.”[26]

Notably, Losey maintains an “ironic distance” from both the proletarian and aristocratic figures in this historical romance. [27]

Footnotes

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  1. ^ Caute p 128
  2. ^ "The Gypsy and the Gentleman (1958) - Joseph Losey - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related - AllMovie". AllMovie.
  3. ^ "The Gypsy and the Gentleman (1958)". Archived from the original on 31 August 2017.
  4. ^ Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 159: Filmography
    Hirsch, 1980 p. 236: Filmography
  5. ^ Hirsch, 1980 p. 72-73: Plot sketch
  6. ^ Losey p 151
  7. ^ Hirsch, 1980 p. 72: “Losey simply hasn’t the temperment for stage-managing a pulpy Regency romance.”
  8. ^ Capute p 128
  9. ^ Mercouri, Melinda (1971). I was born greek. pp. 126–127.
  10. ^ Hirsch, 1980 p. 75: “...the ghastly Mercouri…”
  11. ^ Craig, Michael (2005). The Smallest Giant: An Actor's Life. Allen and Unwin. p. 78.
  12. ^ McFarlane, Brian (1997). An autobiography of British cinema : as told by the filmmakers and actors who made it. Methuen. p. 451.
  13. ^ Losey p 151
  14. ^ Losey p 153
  15. ^ Losey p 153
  16. ^ "The Gypsy and the Gentleman". Variety. 5 February 1958. p. 20. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
  17. ^ Losey p 153
  18. ^ Gow, 1971 p. 39
  19. ^ Callahan, 2003: “The Gypsy and The Gentlemen...a fine Regency picturesque in color that Losey later disowned.”
  20. ^ Hirsch, 1980: Losey: “I think it’s largely a piece of junk that, on the whole, looks marvelous.” Same Gow interview.
  21. ^ Losey p 154
  22. ^ Hirsch, 1980 p. 57: The film is “turned into Losey’s preliminary draft for his major English films on the corrosions of the British class system…”
  23. ^ Hirsch, 1980 p. 73: “...his first treatment of the class theme that is the center of The Servant and The Go-Between“ in which the characters are “dominated by the strict gradations of the British social structure.”
  24. ^ Hirsch, 1980 p. 18
  25. ^ Maras, 2012: “Losey’s left-wing views made him an obvious _target of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and when summoned to appear before it in 1951, he refused and went into exile in England.”
  26. ^ Hirsch, 1980 p. 73: “...he was not permitted to stress” class-related issues by the studio.
  27. ^ Hirsch, 1980 p. 74-75

Sources

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Citations

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