A Place of One's Own is a 1945 British film directed by Bernard Knowles. An atmospheric ghost story based on the novel by Osbert Sitwell, it stars James Mason, Barbara Mullen, Margaret Lockwood, Dennis Price and Dulcie Gray. Mason and Mullen are artificially aged to play the old couple. It was one of the cycle of Gainsborough Melodramas.
Video A Place of One's Own
Plot
Maps A Place of One's Own
Cast
Production
The film was based on a novel published in 1942.
James Mason wrote in his memoirs that when he read the script "not only did I enthuse but I even asked that I might be permitted to play the role of the elderly retiree in the story."
This was the first time Margaret Lockwood used a beauty spot on her cheek in a film, something which became a trademark.
Reception
According to Kinematograph Weekly the film performed well at the British box office in 1945. Considering the popularity at the time of stars James Mason and Margaret Lockwood, the film was considered a financial disappointment. Mason later wrote in his memoirs that the blame needed to be shared between himself, for wanting to play the role, and the producer, for letting him.
Of course it could have turned out a failure even if the most suitable actor in the world had played that part. But the reactions of the top brass at the studio did nothing to allay my own feeling of guilt for having volunteered my services. In any case it was not that I was incapable of turning my hand to a character part, it was just that I had amassed what I always realized was an absurd degree of popularity, and the fan population wanted me to appear only as some heroic young lady-killer; or better-still, ladybasher.
He also blamed director Bernard Knowles:
Knowles deserved his share [of blame] because he had never got over Citizen Kane and still thought that it was a shortcut to success if one had the actors play immensely long sequences without any intercutting or covering shots. In Citizen Kane the director could afford to do this because Herman Mankiewicz had revised one strong situation after another.
The film was not released in the US until 1949.
References
External links
- A Place of One's Own on IMDb
- A Place of One's Own at Britmovie
- A Place of One's Own at the TCM Movie Database
- A Place of One's Own at AllMovie
- Review of film at Variety
- Review of film at New York Times
- Complete film at Internet Archive
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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