Caravan (1946) User Reviews

Fun slice of Gainsborough melodrama with Jean Kent as sexy Spanish gypsy!

[jem132 · 7/10 · 17 October 2007]

This fun slice of Gainsborough melodrama may have been blasted by the critics, but it was a hit in it's day and it still provides plenty of entertainment for those with an open mind. Regular Gainsborough leading man Stewart Granger stars as Richard Darrell, a would-be writer in Regency England who is hopelessly in love with the beautiful, well-to-do Oriana (Anne Crawford). Oriana loves him back but is acutely aware of his lack of social status. So Granger takes on a quest that will provide him with money and have his book published. Hired by a Spanish nobleman Don Carlos, who has met by pure chance, his job is to transport a valuable necklace to Spain. Trouble is, Oriana's father has just died and her her devious, diabolical friend Sir Francis Castleton (Dennis Price, also hopelessly in love with Oriana) is executor of her father's estate. Oriana is left virtually penniless in Sir Francis' cunning plan to win Oriana and hire a hit man (Robert Helpmann) to kill Granger and steal the necklace. Yet none of these characters had counted on the determination of a fiery Spanish gypsy girl (Jean Kent) also in love with Granger....

This film is a lot of fun. It's pure nonsense of course, yet it's rollicking pace, outlandish twists and turns and period setting give it a unique charm. Kent is especially fun as the gypsy Rosal. Kent can't sing or dance very well, and that accent is a shocker, yet she's vibrant, capturing the audience's imagination every time she appears on screen. She's in direct contrast to the limpid blonde heroine Anne Crawford, who really has no presence on-screen or chemistry with Granger. Her wooden acting and over-enunciation soon become tiresome, hence Kent's attractiveness if doubled. I wonder why they didn't cast Phyllis Calvert in the Oriana role. Calvert had worked well and shared good chemistry with Granger in a number of Gainsborough vehicles (including the previous year's Madonna Of The Seven Moons , my favourite Gainsboriugh film)prior to this. Perhaps they feared audiences were growing tired if the partnership? Perhaps Calvert wanted out of her Gainsborough contract? Who knows, yet Calvert's refined dignity and quality of tragic reserve is sorely missed here.

Granger has the sort of arrogant, yet attractive adventurous role he liked best. It's really a forerunner to his Hollywood vehicles. Price chews scenery and is delicious as the villain Sir Francis, wonderfully over-the-top, and blowing Crawford right off the screen. Yet the film belongs to Miss Kent as the bewitching Rosal. After Granger has been critically wounded by Spanish men hired to kill him, the resourceful Kent nurses Granger back to health in her cave. It is revealed he is suffering from memory loss, and Kent, by now hopelessly in love with Granger (passions abound in Gainsborough!), tries to win him with her charms. It almost works too, with Granger forgetting his limpid lover's name- yet Kent mentions Oriana and Granger is immediately drawn back into her web.

It's a bit crazy to ask the viewer to believe that Granger, after being offered freedom and passion with a beautiful gypsy high up in the Spanish caves, still pines for his wooden English doll, but there you go. Love hurts. So Oriana, having believed Richard is long dead, travels to Spain to find out the truth on a hunch that he may still be alive. She has since married the cunning Price, and Granger, finding this out, marries Rosal in revenge. But fate draws the lovers back together......

Yes, it's overwrought, the script is at times laughable and it's waaay far-fetched, yet once you start watching Caravan I doubt you will turn it off until the very end.

Cheerful Hollywood Hooey from Gainsborough Studios

[alonzoiii-1 · 5/10 · 6 August 2012]

Dashing Stewart Granger and sneering Dennis Price love the same blonde maiden from childhood. But Granger ends up wounded with amnesia in a gypsy CARAVAN and linked to a flamenco dancing hot momma. And the blonde maiden is hooked up to dastardly Dennis. Will prim blonde maiden and dashing Stewart end up together, even though there are several countries between them, or will true love fail to triumph?

Most of the mid-40s Gainsborough Gothic romances I've seen have some slight restraint which labels them as British. Sure, there is villainy a-plenty, and firm jawed heroism from Granger and others. But, things don't really get silly. (Well, maybe in Uncle Silas, but that movie really is sui generis).

Well, here, nobody is really taking this thing seriously. Dennis Price, in particular, seems inspired by Tod Slaughter (but with one bout of demonic laughing, alas), as he marries our heroine, and then subjects her immediately to a variety of over the top indignities. The gal playing the hot blooded, flamenco dancing gypsy senorita also has amped up the hot blooded Latin thing to eleven, and is rather fun. The scriptwriter (and, I expect, the original "famous" novel) does not bother with trying to make much sense, and the film, heaven knows, may be better off for that. However, unceasing self-mockery is always a dangerous thing for a genre film, and it is a bit hard to care much about the goings on when the film's creators don't seem much invested in them.

Good for a laugh when Dennis Price is on screen, but Gainsborough did this sort of thing much better elsewhere.

ENTERTAINING ADVENTURE/ROMANCE

[ldeangelis-75708 · 7/10 · 24 May 2022]

This movie, based on one of Eleanor Smith's books, is enjoyable, if you like love stories with adventure thrown in, and don't mind the couple not having a lot of onscreen time together. As in quite a number of historical romance novels, the lovers are separated for a time, and get involved with other people, though they never stop loving each other.

I won't give too much away, just some basics. After aspiring author Richard Darrell (Stewart Granger) saves wealthy Don Carlos from robbers, they become acquainted, and Richard finds himself telling Don Carlos about both his career ambitions and his love for childhood sweetheart, Oriana Camperdene (Anne Crawford). He has a rival in Francis Castleton (Dennis Price), his childhood nemesis, whose money and social background are more in line with Oriana's. However, her heart belongs to Richard, though he wants to have more to offer her, and spent a year in London trying, unsuccessfully, to get his book published. Don Carlos offers to help him out, if Richard will deliver a valuable necklace (that once belonged to Queen Isabella) to Granada.

Francis, meanwhile, tries to change Oriana's mind about marrying Richard, telling her that her father, who recently passed away, had many debts which leave her penniless, whereas he has plenty of money, as well as a title and social position, things Richard can't offer her. When persuasion doesn't work, he resorts to other methods, that result in Oriana thinking Richard was dead, and turning to Francis in despair. She marries him, but their relationship is miserable, as she can't stand sharing his bed, and he becomes more controlling and abusive.

Richard, meanwhile, had lost his memory after a robbery attempt and got involved with Rosal, a gypsy girl (Jean Kent). When he regained his memory and read in a newspaper about Oriana's marriage to Francis, he believed she chose money and society over their love, and married Rosal on the rebound.

How they find their way back to each other, and what becomes of Francis and Rosal, I'll refrain from telling, so check out the movie, it's an entertaining way to pass the time.

Mad, bad and wonderful to know!

[glyntreharne-1 · 23 November 2003]

Wild Gainsborough melodrama adapted from the purple pen of Lady Eleanor Smith with marvellous camp performances from Dennis Price and Robert Helpmann. There is also an athletic performance from Stewart Granger, while Anne Crawford follows in the distinguished footsteps of Phyllis Calvert & Patricia Roc by offering us the blandest of leading ladies. Jean Kent, however, is on hand as a spirited travelling woman. Kent can't sing and she can't dance, but she certainly is a lot of fun, even if she does lay on the sex appeal with a trowel. Almost sixty years on it is easy to see why this series of melodramas were so popular. If you can leave your critical faculties to one side, this is one to enjoy.

A good swashbuckler, mystery and romance in late 19th century London and Spain

[SimonJack · 7/10 · 14 November 2021]

"Caravan" is an interesting and entertaining romantic drama, crime, mystery and action film set in late 19th century Spain and London. The film is based on a 1943 novel of the same title by Eleanor Ferneaux Smith (Lady Eleanor Smith). She was among several dozen young people, mostly aristocrats and socialites, who were labeled "The Bright Young Things" by tabloid writers of the day. They lived Bohemian life styles with often wild parties and public spectacles in the 1920s and early 1930s.

That's an interesting subject in itself. English author Evelyn Waugh wrote a satire about the culture and its "celebrants" in his 1930 novel, "Vile Bodies." A British film was made in 2003 based on Waugh's novel, but titled by the group's popular identification - "Bright Young Things." The Encyclopedia Britannica doesn't have an article on the group, but there is an online article in Wikipedia. That also has a long list of people who supposedly were identified as being within the phrase. But this appears to be almost a list of who's who of note among the young and up and coming of the period. And, it includes some names who were barely teenagers by 1930 as well as several who were well into middle-age even by the 1920s. Waugh was on the list as of the time of this writing. There are many other authors, and actors, statesmen (including three who would become prime ministers of Great Britain - but not Winston Churchill), and some who would become notorious as spies.

So, back to this story and film. The novel and film are more about real love than just romance. Stewart Granger plays Richard Darrell who is trying to get established as an author before he can marry Oriana Camperdene. Played by Anne Crawford, she is a childhood friend and sweetheart from the upper class. Another boyhood companion, but hardly a friend, is Francis Castleton, who also pines for Oriana, and is from the nobility. Dennis Price plays this part as one of the villainous types which he played often in film. After Richard saves a Spanish gentleman who is being mugged at night, Don Carlos (played by Gerard Heinz) reads his story and will try to have it published. But in the meantime, he gives him a commission to deliver priceless jewels that had a history of royalty, to a Spanish lord.

When Richard tells Oriana about his job and possible publishing, she is overjoyed. But listening in is the cad, Castleton. And he sends his valet and man of all errands, Wycroft, off to do Darrell in. Robert Helpmann is quite good as the crafty, deceitful and sniveling Wycroft. He boards the same boat as Darrell for the crossing to the mainland and then befriends him and leads him astray. In a Spanish inn, Richard catches the eyes off Rosal, the dancer who enthralls one and all alike. And she falls hard for him, but he doesn't return her immediate affection. When she sees Wycroft dealing with some scurrilous characters after Richard has left, she knows they are up to no good. So she hurries after them to warn Richard.

Wycroft and his hired henchmen try to trap Richard, but his fighting prowess overcomes the men on the road. Only when the last one jumps him and he's shot, do they then take him for dead and steal the jewels. Rosal arrives on the scene just after they have left. She takes Richard to her gypsy cave and nurses him back to health. But Richard now has amnesia and can't remember even his name.

The real love of the film plays out when Rosal takes a bullet from Castleton that was meant for Richard. Since he can't have Oriana, Castleton kidnaps her as he flees, but Richard chases and catches up with them for a final confrontation.

The acting is quite good all around, and this is somewhat of a swashbuckling film as well. It holds up well today as a tale from the late 19th century.

Caravan

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 8 January 2023]

This is quite an entertaining melodrama than really belongs to the devious, cowardly Dennis Price as dodgy aristocrat "Sir Francis Castleton" who is out to steal the fair maiden "Oriana" (Anne Crawford) from her beau Stewart Granger ("Darrell") who is on a mission to return a valuable necklace to Spain. The plot has plenty going on, twists and turns, robbery, amnesia and betrayal - and luckily a bit of Jean Kent as the mischievous Gypsy "Rosal" who has a sultry quality (but who dances with two left feet). Crawford is fairly sterile as a heroine, the dialogue is a bit on the gloopy side and the staging at times too theatrical for the settings - but it is still an engaging team effort with plenty of comeuppances to be had at the end...

Amiable tosh - specially for nostalgia buffs.

[tgillard · 4/10 · 23 November 2000]

Nostalgic visit to wartime British cinema for old timers - younger viewers will only see the corniness. All through, I was kept watching by set-ups that promised the effects that could have helped me buy this melodrama of romantic love (Granger, Crawford) seriously spiked by dastardly Price in Regency England and Carmen's Spain - but that, in the end, delivered a mixture of laughable action and turgid dialogue. Price's scenery-chewing performance is wonderfully over the top.

Stewart Granger losing his love and finding a better love, which destiny denies him

[clanciai · 9/10 · 17 April 2020]

The real treat here is Jean Kent as Rosal, the gipsy girl. This is a very romantic story chiefly circling around gipsies, since Richard (Stewart Granger) is more or less brought up by them and learns all his arts from them, so naturally he feels at home when destiny brings him into the gipsy world in southern Spain. The story could have taken a truly interesting development as he finds himself stranded among the gipsies and has completely lost his memory - he doesn't know who he is, and finds himself obliged to start a new life from the begninning. For good or for worse, his past comes back looking him up to remind him, even bringing back his sweetheart since his childhood, Anne Crawford, who must pale in view of Jean Kent and her very impressing performances, above all perhaps as a dancer. Stewart Granger has generally been underestimated, he even despised his own performances in his later years, feeling he had not done enough and frustrated by his entire career, which he felt somewhat forfeited. Nevertheless, he was always reliable, all his films will endure, he gives perfect performances in every one of them, and although his parts usually are rather superficial, he always gives them something extra to make them memorable. Dennis Price is as eloquent as ever and here for once in a really crooked part, while Robert Helpmann as his consistent accomplice also makes stunning performances always. In brief, this film is not to be discarded as mere entertainment, since the quality is on top level all the way.

what a hoot

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 28 August 2017]

It is a real hoot to see Dennis Price being as suavely evil as possible.Robert Helpmann as his slimy servant not to mention Jean Kent as the gypsy dancer.They rather put in the shade Anne Crawford who is quite prepared to marry when she believes Granger to be dead,and Granger

who is happy to marry to keep her happy.So everything you would expect from a typical Gainsborough film.

Cheezy melodrama, but too delicious to be limberger.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 9 November 2023]

Coming several years after the first wave of the Gainsborough gothic potboilers ("The Man in Grey", "The Wicked Lady"), this is unintentionally funny thanks to the delightfully over-the-top campy performances by Dennis Price and Robert Helpmann as the main villains, scheming against hero Stewart Granger. Price resents Granger who won the love of his equally well off neighbor Anne Crawford. Granger, whom Price considers to be beneath him, arranges for Helpmann to kill Granger, but he survives, rescued by beautiful gypsy girl Jean Kent.

Keen eyed viewers will recognize Helpmann as the evil child catcher from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", his entrance scene establishing him as a very strange, creepy man, and giving him very sinister scenes where he arranges to meet Granger and later setting up his mugging and seemingly violent death. Price is very similar to the character of Hindley from "Wuthering Heights", a coward who uses others to fight his battles, and when Crawford, regretting her marriage to Price, slaps him fast and furiously, it's a moment worthy of applause.

Certainly not a great movie, but definitely a fun one, performed in an acting style that begets giggles, with Kent truly outlandish in her spitfire attempt at emotion especially inher confrontation with Crawford. Her dancing sequence is quite alluring however. It's a gorgeous film though, quite lavish and stunning for the sets, photography, music and energy. Granger seems to be the only one not playing their part with tongue in cheek. At times it seems like someone else was directing him. As bad as this seems, it's not a film to quit on because once you start it, you'll want to cherish evert scenery chewing moment.