The Gainsborough melodramas were a sequence of films produced by the British film studio Gainsborough Pictures

Gainsborough Pictures

Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, London. Gainsborough Studios were active between 1924 and 1951. Built as a power station for the Great Northern & City Railway it...

 during the 1940s which conformed to a melodramatic style. The melodramas were not a film series

Film series

A film series is a collection of related films in succession. Their relationship is not fixed, but generally share a common diegetic world. Sometimes the work is conceived as a multiple-film work, for example the Three Colours series, but in most cases the success of the original film inspires...

 but an unrelated sequence of films which had similar themes and frequently recurring actors who played similar characters in each. The popularity of the films with audiences peaked in the immediate post-war

Post-war

A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...

 years, but production of such films lasted until the end of Gainsborough in 1949.

The first film in the sequence was the The Man in Grey

The Man in Grey

The Man in Grey is a 1943 British film melodrama made by Gainsborough Pictures, and is widely considered as the first of its "Gainsborough melodramas"...

(based on a novel of the same name

The Man in Grey (novel)

The Man in Grey by Baroness Orczy, author of The Scarlet Pimpernel, was first published in 1918. This time Orczy sets the action in post-revolutionary France....

) which proved to be a major success on its release in 1943 and led to a number of similar pictures being made often based on melodramatic period

Period piece

-Setting:In the performing arts, a period piece is a work set in a particular era. This informal term covers all countries, all periods and all genres...

 novels. The films were initially received with critical hostility, but in subsequent years they have become the subject of more favourable study. They have become synonymous with the studios, in a manner that resembles the Ealing Comedies

Ealing Comedies

For the film Ealing Comedy, see Ealing Comedy .The Ealing Comedies were a series of film comedies produced by Ealing Studios during the period 1947 to 1957....

 despite the fact that Gainsborough made films in a variety of genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

s over several decades.

Actors

A large number of actors appeared in the films but they are particularly associated with James Mason

James Mason

James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...

, Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert

Phyllis Calvert

Phyllis Calvert was an English film, stage and television actress. She was one of the leading stars of the Gainsborough melodramas of the 1940s....

, Stewart Granger

Stewart Granger

Stewart Granger was an English-American film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.-Early life:He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old...

, Patricia Roc

Patricia Roc

Patricia Roc , born Felicia Miriam Ursula Herold, was a British film actress, popular in the Gainsborough melodramas such as Madonna of the Seven Moons and The Wicked Lady , though she only made one film in Hollywood, Canyon Passage...

, Jean Kent

Jean Kent

Jean Kent is a British film actress who appeared in a number of the Gainsborough melodramas of the 1940s.-Biography:Jean Kent was born in Brixton, London as Joan Mildred Summerfield. She started her theatrical career as a dancer in 1931. Initially, she used the stage name of Jean Carr when she...

, Dennis Price

Dennis Price

Dennis Price was an English actor, remembered for his suave screen roles, particularly Louis Mazzini in Kind Hearts and Coronets, and for his portrayal of the omniscient valet Jeeves in 1960s television adaptations of P. G...

 and Dulcie Gray

Dulcie Gray

Dulcie Gray, CBE was a British singer and actress of stage, screen and television, a mystery writer and lepidopterist.-Early life and career:...

. Leslie Arliss

Leslie Arliss

Leslie Arliss was an English screenwriter and director. He is best known for his work on the Gainsborough melodramas directing films such as The Man in Grey and The Wicked Lady. during the 1940s...

directed several of the most successful films.

At the height of the melodramas' popularity James Mason and Margaret Lockwood were respectively voted the most popular British male and female actor.