This is one of my favourite films. Very quaint and typically English but with a powerful and intriguing storyline. Friends of ours came around yesterday and they had been very taken with this one having not seen it before – and if you haven’t seen it before, trying to work out just how things will turn out really taxes the mind.
Michael Denison plays a local family solicitor in a quiet country practice , here appearing with his real-life wife Dulcie Gray, in a story which keeps you guessing until the very end as Dulcie Gray and her mother are accused of kidnapping and false imprisonment.
Michael Denison agrees to defend them, but the odds are stacked against the defendants, and in his legal world he is well out of his depth with such a case. Along the way, he has of course fallen in love with the young lady that he is defending.
As well as this being a favourite film, the location filming for the town of ‘Melford’ was actually Chipping Campden a really lovely little town nestling in the Cotswolds – and these scenes below give us an idea of life there in the very early fifties – it looks much the same now.
Chipping Campden is one of my favourite places.
Much of the exterior sequences of ‘Melford’ were filmed in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
ABOVE – Not sure where this is. I thought at first that the house in the distance was a matte painting but I don’t think it is – I think it is real. Lovely scene all the same
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
Don’t miss this film the next time it is on Talking Pictures – which should be any time in the next week or two on Talking Pictures
I saw this a few days ago on Talking Pictures TV. I’d never seen it before and even I couldn’t have guessed the ending. Ann Stephens was lovely in it. The uncredited baby in the pram must be approaching 70 by now,
David. Thanks for this. I mentioned in the article that a friend of ours visited and mentioned how taken he had been with this film which he had not seen before. It is absorbing if you don’t know it. I really love the film – as it depicts the style of the era and these pictures of Chipping Camden are brilliant – the film just fits that town perfectly. I am very surprised that you have not seen it before as I know you are a film fan of the era – but there again Talking Pictures have saved the day. In recent years the BBC in particular have not shown many of the older films so lo and behold along comes Talking Pictures, and fills the gap. Three cheers to them I say. Neil