The Man in Grey (1943)

The Man in Grey is a 1943 British film melodrama made by Gainsborough Pictures, and is considered as the first of its "Gainsborough melodramas" (a series of period costume dramas). It was directed by Leslie Arliss and produced by Edward Black from a screenplay by Leslie Arliss and Margaret Kennedy, adapted by Doreen Montgomery from the novel The Man in Grey by Eleanor Smith. The film's sets were designed by Walter Murton.

The picture stars Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert, James Mason, Stewart Granger and Martita Hunt, and melded together elements of the successful "women's pictures" of the time with distinct new elements.

Synopsis

In 1943, a WREN (Phyllis Calvert) and an RAF pilot (Stewart Granger) meet at an auction of Rohan family heirlooms, now all being sold off after the last of the Rohan male line was killed at Dunkirk. After the RAF pilot inadvertently casts aspersions on the Rohan family, the WREN reveals that the last male Rohan was in fact her brother. The RAF man apologises, and reveals that his family are connected to the Rohans in a way, and so they arrange to meet for lunch and at the auction the following day.

Actors