| That Hamilton Woman (Lady Hamilton) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Alexander Korda |
| Written by | Walter Reisch R. C. Sherriff |
| Produced by | Alexander Korda |
| Starring | Vivien Leigh Laurence Olivier Alan Mowbray |
| Cinematography | Rudolph Maté |
| Edited by | William W. Hornbeck |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | United Artists (UK/US) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 128 minutes |
| Countries | United States United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,250,000[1] |
| Box office | over $1 million (US/Canada, 1941 release)[2] £119,305 (UK, 1948 re-release)[3] 2,360,970 admissions (France, 1945)[4] |
That Hamilton Woman, also known as Lady Hamilton, is a 1941 black-and-white historical film drama produced and directed by Alexander Korda for his British company during his exile in the United States.[5] Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the film tells the story of the rise and fall of Emma Hamilton, dance-hall girl and courtesan, who married Sir William Hamilton, British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples,[6] and later became Admiral Horatio Nelson's mistress.[7]
The film was a critical and financial success, and while on the surface the plot is both a war story and a romance set in Napoleonic times, it was also intended to function as a film that would portray Britain positively within the context of World War II, which was being fought at that time. At the time it was released, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Denmark were all occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union was still officially allied with the Third Reich, so the British were fighting against the Nazis alone and felt the need to produce films that would both boost their morale and also portray them sympathetically to the foreign world, especially the United States.[8][9]
- ^ "UA Meeting". Variety. 20 November 1940. p. 20.
- ^ Balio 2009, p. 172.
- ^ Porter, Vincent. "The Robert Clark Account." Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 20, No 4, 2000.
- ^ "French box office in 1945." Box office story. Retrieved: 1 February 2015.
- ^ McFarlane 2003, p. 370.
- ^ Fraser 1987, p. 163.
- ^ Bean, Kendra. "British Cinema History: That Hamilton Woman." Archived 11 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine VivAndLarry.com, 16 February 2011.
- ^ "That Hamilton Woman (1941) - Overview - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies.
- ^ The Moguls and the Dictators: Hollywood and the Coming of World War II By David Welky, Associate Professor David Welky, PH.D. pg. 275