Another movie not about furries

Another movie that I've had on my DVR for quite some time and wanted to make certain I watched before it expired is the British costume drama Blanche Fury. Now that I have watched it, it's time for the review.

The movie starts off with a woman in bed in one of those English estates out in the middle of nowhere in the mid-1850s. (The movie is based on a book that was based on a true crime from 1848, although the first date we see in the movie is 1853.) That woman is Blanche Fuller (Valerie Hobson), and the servants of the house are calling in a doctor for reasons that will become clear later in the movie. But the doctor's administration of ether as an anesthetic causes Blanche to have a flashback, which is so highly original.

Back in 1853, young Blanche is working a series of jobs as a companion to relatively well-to-do older ladies, having had to take on the jobs after her parents died. The work isn't really suited to Blanche's temperament, so when she gets a letter from her uncle Simon who lives at the estate house, she jumps at the chance to join him and her cousin Laurence (Michael Gough). They've got a position for her as a governess to Laurence's daughter Lavinia, and she can get away from the drudgery of her current job.

Blanche misses Simon where the carriages stop in town, so heads to the estate alone. When she gets there, she meets a man who she thinks is Laurence, but in fact turns out to be Philip Thorn (Stewart Granger). He works as a steward in the stables, but his story is much more complicated than that. The estate had been owned by the Fury family, but the last Fury died and bequeathed the estate to Simon, who has taken on the name Fury as a result. Philip, however, is the illegitimate son of the last Fury male, and thinks he should have inherited the propery. Simon kept him on since he's good at what he does, but Philip bears a severe resentment and is trying to find evidence that his father actually did marry his biological mother, which would make Philip legitimate and the rightful heir to the estate.

Meanwhile, Blanche thinks about marrying cousin Laurence, which would give Lavinia a more stable family. At the same time, she's carrying on an affair with Philip. This is going to cause all sorts of problems in Philip's attempts to win back the estate. And to do so is going to require the deaths of Simon, Laurence, and Lavinia, all of whom have more right to the estate than Philip does.

Blanche Fury comes across as being similar to the sort of Hollywood period melodrama that was popular in pre-TV days. Think Forever Amber or, earlier, All This and Heaven Too, but with a British sensibility about their past history and British production values. It's very competently made, and fairly well acted, although at heart it's still a melodrama which means it's got an air about that makes me think it's a bit silly at times. That's not to say Blanche Fury is a bad movie; in fact it does quite well for the genre. It's more of a question of whether that genre will appeal to everybody.