Melodrama Screening and Discussion, Wednesday 29th January, 5-7pm, Jarman 6

All are very welcome to join us for the second of this term’s melodrama screenings. We will be showing Busman’s Honeymoon (1940, Arthur B Woods, 99 mins) on Wednesday the 29th of January, 5-7pm, in Jarman 6.

This continues our focus on film adaptations of detective novels written by women. Busman’s Honeymoon is based on the 1937 novel of the same name by Dorothy L Sayers. It was the last in her 11 book series to feature her popular amateur gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey.

The film, which starred the Americans Robert Montgomery as the English sleuth and Constance Cummings as his Oxford educated mystery novelist wife, Harriet Vane, was released as Haunted Honeymoon in the United States.

Melodrama is less obvious in both the novel and the film than was the case for last time’s screening, Young and Innocent, whose man on the run theme related to male melodrama. Sayers’ subtitle to the book, ‘a love story with detective interruptions’, suggests it belongs to both the romantic and detective genres, but downplays its  mystery elements. The US lobby card pictured above suggests a more even division as the main couple, in wedding gear, is drawn straddling a gun.

Do join us if you can.

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