Plot

Yorkshire-1750. This film tells of the intertwined lives of two young teens: Tolly, an orphan apprenticed to a draper, and Belle Carter, a young girl who never fully recovered from a fever. Tolly's life takes an unwelcome turn early on when he is unwillingly locked into a room with a supposed corpse (Jean Franval, in the title role). Black Jack is a not-very-charming rogue who escapes death by hanging by lodging a spoon in this throat to prevent his neck from snapping. Black Jack grabs Tolly and the two head out on the road. At the same time, Belle is being put into care---1750s style, which is pretty gruesome---by her wealthy parents so that her mental state doesn't become public knowledge and interfere with her older sister's social-climbing marriage. During her transport to the asylum, a staged accident frees the girl, and she and Tolly meet. There are various plot complications but essentially Tolly starts working for a 'doctor' in a traveling medicine show across Yorkshire and Belle starts to recover. Events are continually being malevolently influenced by a peer of Tolly, Hatch, an engagingly sleazy boy played by Andrew Bennett. The strength of this film lies partly in its very strong character development and partly in its illumination of a bygone era. Most telling of all is the interaction between these two aspects, as we see a society which expects much more maturity, independence, and self-sufficiency in the young than we do nowadays. We also see much more official indifference to those at risk than is currently the norm in the UK.

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