British actress Anna Neagle had a lengthy career in the 1930s through to the 1950s, but she’s largely unknown to modern audiences. Turns out she left quite the legacy when it came to historical roles on film!
Magic Night (1932)
Bittersweet (1933)
Nell Gwynn (1934)
Peg of Old Drury (1935)
Victoria the Great (1937)
Sixty Glorious Years / Queen of Destiny (1938)
Nurse Edith Cavell (1939)
Katy’s Love Affair / The Courtneys of Curzon Street (1947)
Elizabeth of Ladymead (1948)
The Lady with a Lamp (1949)
What is your favorite historical role played by Anna Neagle? Share it with us in the comments!
Completely off topic comment but as a Brazilian/Latina fan of FF I’d love to see a Frock Flicks analysis of the Brazilian telenovela ”Novo Mundo” (New World), especially since y’all made those delicious reviews of those wtfrock Turkish dramas about the Ottoman court and Brazilian telenovelas have an ever higher budget and a similar reach. This telenovela is particularly interesting since it features a lot of historical figures (including Empress Leopoldina, a Habsburg!) and it’s also set in the equivalent of the Regency era (First Kingdom in Brazil) an era that is very well documented (especially the garments and their intricate social meaning) by the paintings of Jean Baptiste Debret and other artists, unlike the previous centuries, but they still chose to go with generic old timey vibes for the women even though the male characters get accurate outfits. Btw the fictional main character (Anna Millman) is a fantasy princess-ey meh version of Maria Granham, an actual person and British intellectual that actually served in the court at the time. I guess Granham wasn’t spicy enough so they created the princess-ey version that fights with swords and I’d love to see her roasted LOL
I too have an off-topic question: Could you please tell us about that intriguing textile hanging behind you in your and your team’s filmed discussion on the best and worst costumes this week? It looked like an incomplete embroidered panel. Many thanks!
I’ve never heard of this actress, nor have I seen any of these films. The costumes from the two Victoria movies look fantastic, though, and I’d love to watch and compare them to the British TV show Victoria and to the Emily Blunt movie. Also, Elizabeth of Ladymeade looks interesting. Long ago Ralph Fiennes was in a movie with a similar premise, Sunshine, in which he played characters in 3 or 4 generations of one family. He did an excellent job (as usual). It would be great to see an actress do the same.
One of my favorite historical movies, “Sunshine.” (Sadly, I don’t remember the costumes much, I was so absorbed by all the characters.)
Edith Cavell did not go to the front lines. She was matron of a hospital in Brussels when the Germans invaded.
She treated soldiers of all countries, gladly. But she was found guilty of helping smuggle British and French soldiers out of he country.
The Germans considered this treason and she was killed by a firing squad.
I believe there’s also Lilacs in the Spring in which she plays a woman in the 1950’s and her mother during the 1910’s to 1920’s and it also has two sketches in which she imagines herself as Nell Gwynn and Queen Victoria
There’s King’s Rhapsody in which she is a king’s mistress but I don’t know if it’s period also there’s Forever and a Day (1943) it is full of stars and she is in one of the flashbacks about the house the film is set in I think her character is from the 19th century
Wings and the woman (1942) I believe is set in the 1920’s to 1930’s so it would be period
And I also think that some of Brazil’s Telenovelas would be a very nice Topic for a review from FROCKFLICKS
I really want to see Victoria the Great (and maybe the sequel) one of these days! The costumes look really faithfully recreated, and I’ve heard the writing is pretty dang historically accurate, too. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t seem to be available online anywhere.
let me do my weekly good action and say i think you might found them in vk.com or ok.ru good luck also youtube got HD clips to order them if your intrigued enough
I’m quite shore that The Lady With The Lamp is from 1951 also it can be watched here:http://m4uhd.net/watch-movie-oa69y-the-lady-with-a-lamp-1951-online-free-m4ufree.html
I would love to see her Bitter Sweet there’s a clip in Youtube in which she’s completely adorable also it looks much more faithful to the original than the Macdonald-Eddy version
I always thought like that:
United States has Greer Garson
United Kingdom has Anna Neagle
France has Renee Saint-Cyr
Germany has Paula Wessely
Since you have two of them a Post could you give a try on the other two?