Lady Caroline Lamb (1972)

Interesting facts

• Filmed in: Pinewood Studios

Lady Caroline Lamb is a 1972 British epic romantic drama film based on the life of Lady Caroline Lamb, novelist, sometime lover of Lord Byron and wife of politician William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. The only film written and directed by Robert Bolt, it starred his wife, Sarah Miles, as Lady Caroline, Jon Finch, Richard Chamberlain, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Mills, Margaret Leighton and Michael Wilding.

Production

Filming started 20 September 1971 at Pinewood Studios. By that stage Bolt said he had been working on the film for ten months.

"I'm not a good director but I know what the author intended", said Bolt. He elected to use new collaborators rather than David Lean's crew apart from Norman Savage, who died shortly after the film premiered. Filming was plagued by the presence of David Whiting who was working as an assistant to Miles and Bolt.

One scene was cut after it earned the film an X-Certificate; Bolt refused to re-shoot it, which meant that several crucial moments of exposition, much of it necessary for understanding the film's narrative, were left out.

Bolt did not direct another film. "Never again", he remarked years later.

The film is also notable because it is the last film in which Michael Wilding appeared, in a cameo with his last wife, Margaret Leighton, who played Lady Melbourne. The film score was composed by Richard Rodney Bennett, who later based a concert work, Elegy for Lady Caroline Lamb for viola and orchestra, on some of the material.

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