Alexander Korda

That Hamilton Woman

That Hamilton Woman

One of cinema’s most dashing duos, real-life spouses Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier live their greatest on-screen romance in this visually dazzling tragic love story from legendary producer-director Alexander Korda. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars of the late eighteenth century, That Hamilton Woman is a gripping account of the scandalous adulterous affair between the British Royal Navy officer Lord Horatio Nelson and the renowned beauty Emma, Lady Hamilton, the wife of a British ambassador. With its grandly designed sea battles and formidable star performances, That Hamilton Woman (Winston Churchill’s favorite movie, which he claimed to have seen over eighty times) brings history to vivid, glamorous life.

Film Info

  • United Kingdom
  • 1941
  • 125 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • English
  • Spine #487

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Audio commentary featuring noted film historian Ian Christie
  • New video interview with author and editor Michael Korda, Alexander’s nephew, who discusses growing up in the Korda family and the making of That Hamilton Woman
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Alexander Korda Presents, a 1941 promotional radio piece for the film
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Molly Haskell

    New cover by Michael Boland

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Audio commentary featuring noted film historian Ian Christie
  • New video interview with author and editor Michael Korda, Alexander’s nephew, who discusses growing up in the Korda family and the making of That Hamilton Woman
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Alexander Korda Presents, a 1941 promotional radio piece for the film
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Molly Haskell

    New cover by Michael Boland
That Hamilton Woman
Cast
Vivien Leigh
Emma Lady Hamilton
Laurence Olivier
Lord Horatio Nelson
Alan Mowbray
Sir William Hamilton
Sara Allgood
Mrs. Cadogan-Lyon
Gladys Cooper
Lady Frances Nelson
Henry Wilcoxon
Captain Hardy
Halliwell Hobbes
Rev. Nelson
Credits
Director
Alexander Korda
Producer
Alexander Korda
Original screenplay
Walter Reisch
Original screenplay
R. C. Sherriff
Production design
Vincent Korda
Cinematography
Rudolph Maté
Music
Miklós Rózsa
Sound
William H. Wilmarth
Special effects
Lawrence Butler
Production manager
Raymond A. Klune
Art director
Lyle Reynolds Wheeler
Special sequences photographed by
Edward Linden, A.S.C.
Costume designer
René Hubert
Interior decorator
Julia Heron
Assistant director
Walter Mayo
Supervising film editor
William Hornbeck
Makeup artist
Blagoe Stephanoff

Current

That Hamilton Woman: Real Love/Reel Love
That Hamilton Woman: Real Love/Reel Love
Is That Hamilton Woman, starring Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier at their most heart-stoppingly beautiful and mutually enraptured, one of the most romantic movies ever made because or in spite of the fact that it was designed as propaganda? It was …

By Molly Haskell

Explore

The Kordas

Director, Producer, Production Designer

The Kordas
The Kordas

During sound cinema’s first full decade, the Hungarian-born Korda brothers—Alexander, Zoltán, and Vincent—built a British empire. The mastermind behind their legendary company, London Films Productions, was producer, director, writer, and eventual mega-mogul Alex; born Sándor Kellner, he became interested in the art of silent cinema as a teenager in his home country, writing criticism and even founding a movie magazine before finding success making his own films all over Europe. In the late twenties, following a short stint in Hollywood, Alex was sent to England to head up Paramount’s British Production Unit; in 1932, he established London Films and brought aboard his younger siblings, Zoltán as a writer/director and Vincent as a production designer. Their first big hit was The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), which earned Charles Laughton an Oscar and the Kordas international attention. The rest of the thirties held highs (The Rise of Catherine the Great, Elephant Boy) and lows (The Private Life of Don Juan) for the company. But its films—often about historical personalities (Rembrandt) or the exploits of the British Empire abroad (Sanders of the River, The Four Feathers)—remain exemplars of a grand period of British cinema. In the forties, the Kordas only grew in stature—due not only to such immensely popular titles as The Thief of Bagdad and That Hamilton Woman but also to the selection of Alexander, the first film director to be so honored, for knighthood.