The Forbidden Street

The Forbidden Street is a 1949 British melodrama film directed by Jean Negulesco and starring Dana Andrews, Maureen O'Hara, Sybil Thorndike, Fay Compton and A. E. Matthews. In Victorian London, a young woman marries a poor drunken artist and struggles to make ends meet. After his death, she takes in a lodger whom she soon falls in love with.

Plot summary

From a well to do family, Adelaide (Maureen O'Hara), over the objections of her family, marries an impoverished artist Henry Lambert (Dana Andrews) who is later killed in an accident when Adelaide pushes him away. Adelaide is blackmailed for two years by her neighbor, Mrs. Mounsey, a spiteful old hag (Sybil Thorndike) who claims to the police that Henry was killed accidentally.

Adelaide still living in the Britannia Mews, when a young barrister, Gilbert Lauderdale (Dana Andrews), shows up who is the living image of Adelaide's late husband. He gets rid of the old woman by threatening to prosecute her for blackmail, eventually reunites Adelaide with her family, and along the way falls in love with her himself.

Cast

• Dana Andrews as Henry Lambert / Gilbert Lauderdale
• Maureen O'Hara as Adelaide Culver
• Sybil Thorndike as Mrs. Mounsey
• Fay Compton as Mrs. Culver
• Anthony Tancred as Treff Culver
• Diane Hart as The Blazer
• Anne Butchart as Alice Hambro
• Wilfrid Hyde-White as Mr. Culver
• A. E. Matthews as Mr. Bly
• Mary Martlew as Milly Lauderdale

Production notes

• 20th Century Fox bought Margery Sharp's novel in June 1946 for $150,000 plus bonus increments
• The film was shot in England using studio funds frozen in Great Britain.
• Production Dates: mid-Jul-mid-Oct 1948 at London Film Studios, Shepperton, England
• The working titles of this film were Britannia Mews and Impulse.
• The film was released in Great Britain as Britannia Mews and was originally scheduled to be released in America as Affairs of Adelaide

External links

• The Forbidden Street at IMDb
• The Forbidden Street at AllMovie
• The Forbidden Street at the TCM Movie Database
• The Forbidden Street at the American Film Institute Catalog