The Bad Lord Byron (1949)

Injured and on his deathbed in Greece, Lord Byron imagines a celestial trial with witnesses to determine the worth of his character.

Date of release
1949-04-18
TMDB
6.1 / 10 (7)
Runtime
1h 25m
Genres
Drama
Director
David MacDonald

Casting

Interesting facts

The Bad Lord Byron is a 1949 British historical drama film about the life of Lord Byron. It was directed by David MacDonald and starred Dennis Price as Byron with Mai Zetterling, Linden Travers and Joan Greenwood.

Production

The film was announced in 1945 by Two Cities with Eric Portman to play the title role (Portman had played Byron on stage). Stewart Granger was mentioned as another possibility. The film was to be written, produced and directed by Terence Young based on the books by Peter Quennell, The Years of Fame and Byron in Italy.

The project was not made but was re-activated when Sydney Box took over Gainsborough Studios in 1946. Box had been considering a film based on Percy Shelley but was also enthusiastic about making one on Byron, who Box greatly admired. He assigned the project to producer Aubrey Baring and director David MacDonald. They greatly reduced Young's script by a half but Box was still dissatisfied with it.

Working with Gainsborough script adviser Paul Holt, Box reconfigured the film to consist of a series of flashbacks about episodes in Byron's life. Box ultimately decided this approach was too derivative of Citizen Kane and made Byron's presence in the film too insubstantial. He then decided to focus the script on Byron's relationship with Teresa Guiccioli but changed his mind with Mai Zetterling who was playing that part was not available.

The lead role was given to Dennis Price, who said during shooting he felt Portman should play the role. Linden Travers later recalled the film as "a pretty interesting thing to do, though I think it needed a wilder type than Dennis Price for Byron. It wasn’t very good but I enjoyed it; I really enjoyed working. I was never terribly nervous, because I never carried the whole film on my shoulders."

Location filming began in Italy in October 1947. They returned in December. It was followed by shooting in Shepherd's Bush studio. Filming was done by April.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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