Lady Caroline Lamb

After enduring Robert Bolt's rather turgid retelling of Lady Caroline Lamb's ill-fated love and finding myself, once again, unable to warm to his real-life wife (at the time), the rather tiresome Sarah Miles, the whole enterprise was redeemed by that fabulously funny curtain line. When told that Lady Caroline has died of a broken heart, one of her chief female detractors faces the camera (through the lace curtains of a window, I seem to recall) and hisses, (Alas! I'm not quoting verbatim, since I haven't seen this since its theatrical release, but here goes...) "She would!, wouldn't she?!?" I laughed all the way out to the parking lot. Not available on video, apparently, and if they do unearth this bit of cinematic costume jewellry (not really a precious gem, mind you), let us hope that it will be on DVD where the Panavision/widescreen ratio will be preserved.

Only a besotted husband could send a love letter as wacky as this movie as Robert Bolt did to Sarah Miles; on which he squandered all the critical capital he'd amassed with 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'A Man for All Seasons'.

The real Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) probably wasn't much like the unhinged pixie Sarah Miles plays here (and there never was another woman like Joan Greenwood in 'The Bad Lord Byron'). Lord Byron was certainly nothing like Richard Chamberlain in Freddie Mercury eyeliner. But dull it ain't.

A sherry-trifle of a biopic and period drama from '71-72, Lady Caroline Lamb captures the pneuma of 1972 - that greyest of hippie years so well. The early-'70s were pioneering years and 1972 was the year that saw the release of Andrey Tarkovsky's Solaris, Bill Douglas' My Ain Folk, Jack Couffer's The Darwin Adventure and Charlton Heston's Antony & Cleopatra. The scenes filmed in Italy at twilight at a palazzo and Roman amphitheatre are very evocative and have a sense of enchantment and stillness as do some of the interior shots featuring Lady Caroline and Richard Chamberlain's Lord Byron, while the score composed by English composer Richard Rodney Bennett is quite superb . Maudlin and melodramatic - Sarah Miles in appearance in some scenes prefigures the punk style of the mid-'70s - she sports a shock of grey/pinkish spiky hair. Jon Finch 'Frenzy' (1972) is good as the liberal Lord Melbourne while Sir Laurence Olivier's flair performance as the Duke of Wellington is splendid:- he sports a royal blue silk sash, Regency-Era wavy chestnut hair and a hooked putty false nose and is every inch the classical figure from the Age of Reason. Sir Ralph Richardson ( an actor born in 1902) as King George IV is both lyrical and amusing.

In early 19th century England, the rather erratic and impulsive Lady Caroline Ponsonby (Sarah Miles) marries William Lamb (Jon Finch) in one such moment of romantic impulse. She soon finds herself restless and depressed in a loveless marriage. Her party going and eccentric behaviour in an open affair with the rakish poet Lord Byron (Richard Chamberlain) soon makes her a social outcast.

A period drama that pays attention to detail in places and at other times over stylises the Georgian period, while often being shy of facts. Oswald Morris's widescreen camerawork is effective, but the film doesn't hold together as well as it perhaps should.

I first saw this film on holiday in London c1973 when it was first released. It was showing at the prestigious Odean Cinema in London & I recall at the time this film was such a 'big deal' that the we were given (or bought) a large glossy souvenir program that came with the film. It was treated like we were attending the opera or theater. Look at the line up of big names who were a part of this. Laurence Olivier, John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Margaret Leighton & 'super star' Richard Chamberlain after his 'Dr Kildare' fame.

Forty years on it all seems rather ordinary and we know that Bolt was rather loose with the historical facts. But I still enjoyed seeing it again remembering that first time I saw it all those years ago. In fact, some of the best work Richard Chamberlain would do was in the 5-6 years he lived in the UK and about the time he made this. And even now I give it an 8/10