The Cure for Love | |
---|---|
Directed by | Robert Donat |
Written by | Walter Greenwood (play) Albert Fennell Alexander Shaw Robert Donat |
Produced by | Robert Donat |
Starring | Robert Donat Renee Asherson Dora Bryan |
Cinematography | Jack E. Cox |
Edited by | Bert Bates |
Music by | William Alwyn |
Production company | |
Distributed by | British Lion Films |
Release dates |
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Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Box office | £193,781 (UK) [1] |
The Cure for Love is a 1949 British comedy film starring and directed by Robert Donat. The cast also includes Renee Asherson and Dora Bryan. The film was based on a hit play of the same name by Walter Greenwood about a mild-mannered soldier returning home after the Second World War.
Donat had appeared in the stage play in 1945. [2] In 1948 it was announced he would make a film version for Alexander Korda. [3] It was his sole feature credit as director, although he had directed on stage.
Francis Wignall was chosen out of 3,000 boys to play a lead role. [4] Donat battled ill health during pre-production. [5] The production was shot at Shepperton Studios, with sets designed by the art director Wilfred Shingleton.
Trade papers called the film a "notable box office attraction" in British cinemas in 1950. [6] According to Kinematograph Weekly the 'biggest winners' at the box office in 1950 Britain were The Blue Lamp, The Happiest Days of Your Life, Annie Get Your Gun, The Wooden Horse, Treasure Island and Odette, with "runners up" being Stage Fright, White Heat, They Were Not Divided, Trio, Morning Departure, Destination Moon, Sands of Iwo Jima, Little Women, The Forsythe Saga, Father of the Bride, Neptune's Daughter, The Dancing Years, The Red Light, Rogues of Sherwood Forest, Fancy Pants, Copper Canyon, State Secret, The Cure for Love, My Foolish Heart, Stromboli, Cheaper by the Dozen, Pinky, Three Came Home, Broken Arrow and Black Rose. [7]
Friedrich Robert Donat was an English actor. He is best remembered for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), winning for the latter the Academy Award for Best Actor.
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Walter Greenwood was an English novelist, best known for the socially influential novel Love on the Dole (1933).
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Dora May Broadbent,, known as Dora Bryan, was a British actress of stage, film and television.
Nigel Dennis Patrick Wemyss-Gorman was an English actor and stage director born into a theatrical family.
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Dorothy Renée Ascherson, known professionally as Renée Asherson, was an English actress. Much of her theatrical career was spent in Shakespearean plays, appearing at such venues as the Old Vic, the Liverpool Playhouse, and the Westminster Theatre. Her first stage appearance was on 17 October 1935, aged 20, and her first major film appearance was in The Way Ahead (1944). Her last film appearance was in The Others (2001).
The Winslow Boy is a 1948 British drama film adaptation of Terence Rattigan's 1946 play The Winslow Boy. It was made by De Grunwald Productions and distributed by the British Lion Film Corporation. It was directed by Anthony Asquith and produced by Anatole de Grunwald with Teddy Baird as associate producer. The adapted screenplay was written by de Grunwald and Rattigan based on Rattigan's play. The music score was by William Alwyn and the cinematography by Freddie Young.
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The Cure for Love is a comedy play by the British writer Walter Greenwood which premiered in 1945. Its West End run lasted for 219 performances at the Westminster Theatre between July 1945 and January 1946. Amongst the cast were Robert Donat, Renée Asherson, Charles Victor, Marjorie Rhodes and Joan White. The play portrays the return of an easy-going soldier to his Lancashire hometown after the Second World War. He falls in love with a young woman boarding at his mother's house, but struggles to break away from his faithless and calculating fiancée who intends to hold him to their engagement.