Caravan is a melodramatic

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

 novel by the British writer Lady Eleanor Smith

Eleanor Smith

Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith was an English writer. The eldest of the politician F. E. Smith's three children, she worked as a society reporter and cinema reviewer for a while, then as a publicist for circus companies...

 first published in 1942. A young Englishman Richard Darrell undertakes a mission to Spain for a business friend in order to have enough money to marry his sweetheart Oriana, but his villainous enemy Sir Francis Castleton conspires his murder and when news of his death reaches England marries the hero's lover himself. The hero, however, has not died in the attack and has instead been rescued by a gypsy woman. Having lost his memory, he marries her without thinking of his own lover in Britain. The novel concludes with Sir Francis travelling out to Spain for a confrontation with Darrell when he discovers he is still alive.

Film adaptation

In 1946 the novel was adapted into a film Caravan

Caravan (1946 film)

Caravan is a 1946 British drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree. It was one of the Gainsborough Melodramas and is based on a novel Caravan by Eleanor Smith....

by Gainsborough Pictures

Gainsborough Pictures

Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, London. Gainsborough Studios were active between 1924 and 1951. Built as a power station for the Great Northern & City Railway it...

 as part of the Gainsborough melodramas

Gainsborough melodramas

The Gainsborough melodramas were a sequence of films produced by the British film studio Gainsborough Pictures during the 1940s which conformed to a melodramatic style. The melodramas were not a film series but an unrelated sequence of films which had similar themes and frequently recurring actors...

 sequence of films. The film was directed by Arthur Crabtree

Arthur Crabtree

Arthur Crabtree was a British cinematographer and film director....

 and starred Stewart Granger

Stewart Granger

Stewart Granger was an English-American film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.-Early life:He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old...

, Jean Kent

Jean Kent

Jean Kent is a British film actress who appeared in a number of the Gainsborough melodramas of the 1940s.-Biography:Jean Kent was born in Brixton, London as Joan Mildred Summerfield. She started her theatrical career as a dancer in 1931. Initially, she used the stage name of Jean Carr when she...

, Anne Crawford

Anne Crawford

Anne Crawford , born Imelda Crawford, was a British film actress, in films such as Millions Like Us...

 and Dennis Price

Dennis Price

Dennis Price was an English actor, remembered for his suave screen roles, particularly Louis Mazzini in Kind Hearts and Coronets, and for his portrayal of the omniscient valet Jeeves in 1960s television adaptations of P. G...

.