| Dance with a Stranger | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Mike Newell |
| Written by | Shelagh Delaney |
| Produced by | Roger Randall-Cutler |
| Starring | Miranda Richardson Rupert Everett |
| Cinematography | Peter Hannan |
| Music by | Richard Hartley theme song by Mari Wilson |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
|
Running time | 102 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £1,360,000[1] or £1.5 million[2] |
| Box office | £850,000 (UK) $3 million (US) $1 million (other territories)[1] |
Dance with a Stranger is a 1985 British film[3] directed by Mike Newell. Telling the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain (1955), the film won critical acclaim, and aided the careers of two of its leading actors, Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett. The screenplay was by Shelagh Delaney, author of A Taste of Honey, and was her third major screenplay. The story of Ellis has resonance in Britain because it provided part of the background to the extended national debates that led to the progressive abolition of capital punishment from 1965.
The theme song, a cover version of Peggy Lee's 1951 track "Would You Dance with a Stranger?", was performed by Mari Wilson and released as a single.
- ^ a b Borne, Nigel. "Little film little profit." Sunday Times [London, England] 26 January 1986: 31. The Sunday Times Digital Archive. Web. 29 March 2014.
- ^ "Back to the Future: The Fall and Rise of the British Film Industry in the 1980s - An Information Briefing" (PDF). British Film Institute. 2005. p. 21.
- ^ Dobson, Michael (30 November 2006). Performing Shakespeare's Tragedies Today: The Actor's Perspective. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521671224.