Black Jack

Yorkshire-1750. The film follows the intertwined lives of two young teenagers: Tory, an orphaned draper's apprentice, and Belle, a young girl from whom they never fully recovered from the fever. Tory's life takes an unwelcome turn early when he is unwillingly locked into a room with an imaginary corpse (Jean Franval, the character in the title). Black Jack is a very charming gangster, who escapes death by handing a spoon over the throat and prevents snapping by hanging him by the neck. Black Jack grabs Tolly and both heads out on the road. At the same time, Belle was being put into care by her wealthy parents so that her mental state would not become public knowledge and interfere with her sister's social climbing marriage---in the style of the 1750s, it was pretty scary---. During her transport to the asylum, a staged accidental release of the girl, she and Tory meet. There are all sorts of plot complications, but basically Tory's "doctor" gets to work, traveling throughout Yorkshire and Belle starts a revival at the Medical Fair. Events are constantly being told maliciously by Tory, Hutch, a touchingly thin boy played by Andrew Bennett...