Cast a Dark Shadow (1957)

Good movie but grossly overrated

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Splendid acting all the way in this dark play of intrigue treating you with some very spectacular surprises. This lurid and scheming sly character of a reckless and shameless opportunist fits Dirk Bogarde's prying kind of acting perfectly, and I have never seen him better, but the prize goes to Margaret Lockwood - it's impossible to start with to recognize her as Margaret Lockwood. She is his perfect match and proves quite capable of handling this intelligent and calculating psychopath of a human failure as no one else. Kay Walsh, on the other hand, takes him on differently with kindness and sympathy but only to prove the hardest and cleverest woman of them all - their final volcano eruption of a quarrel makes the film glow of glory like an overwhelming theatre performance. It's an amazing story and film of amazing characters, each one shining in her own virtuoso performance, and even Kathleen Harrison adds to it with her very own idiosyncrasy of adorable honesty and simplicity. It's a real treat of a film for the noir lovers, especially if they know how to enjoy tense chamber drama of passion, crime and deceit like a best one of Hitchcock's, and it will even be well worth seeing a film like this occasionally again.

Looked forward to Margaret Lockwood especially, but didn't like her switch in this. What a waste for a beautiful, elegant woman to do bourgeois vulgar, regardless of the talent it took to do it. Someone mentioned a plot hole in this and there's misunderstanding about the cad's misunderstanding of the new will. I agree there's a plot hole, but it's the fact that the brakes worked in the car Teddy tampered with. Remember, Charlotte Young stopped and came back. Maybe they weren't cut through and could stop a little, but not make the big brake on the dangerous hill. Regardless, I can't like this one. It compares unfavorably with similar others such as Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel, dark motive venues with many question marks and instability. Those were keepers in my view. This one just gets on the nerves for the wrong reasons. The Lockwood character is so tacky, she's difficult to endure. Bogard is too raw in his hungry greed. Both of these detract and distract from anything else. Definitely would not wish to view again.

I watched this film this evening for the first time. It's a bit stagy at times (understandable because of the movie's basis in a stage play). This has one bad effect - there is too much dialog in the conclusion, with Dirk Bogarde and Kay Walsh's final confrontation being too long as the psychological control see-saws between them over each other.Dirk Bogarde has become one of the forgotten figures of British cinema in the last thirty years, because of his decision to have a remarkably quiet lifestyle. Up to the 1970s, when he made Visconti's "The Damned", and "Death In Venice", he was one of the leading British cinema stars with great name recognition in America. But after that, the star appeared increasingly infrequently. He would live for several decades more, but by the time he died (even though he had gotten honored) he was like an afterthought. It was a regrettable conclusion for a fine acting career.Bogarde played all kinds of films, from comedies like "Doctor In The House" and "Doctor At Sea" (as Dr. Simon Sparrow) to dramas like "The Spanish Gardener" to war films like "A Bridge Too Far". A homosexual in real life, he portrayed a blackmailed one in "Victim". He was able to do costume films, such as "H.M.S.Defiant". And that last film brings up an interesting point - Bogarde was quite good at playing villains. His character in "The Damned" is a fortune hunter marrying into a Krupp-like family, who willingly sells his soul to the Nazis to get backup for his ambitions (and eventually is out-maneuvered by even more ruthless figures). In "Libel" he is fighting charges of impersonation and treason, playing two men who were in a P.O.W. camp together (one a good guy, one a sneak).Bogarde plays "Teddy" Bare, a charming creep who romances elderly, rich women. He aims at Mona Washbourne, and succeeds with her, but before he kills her she changes her will so he can't benefit. He then aims at a younger woman (Margaret Leighton), who is loud and common. Someone on this thread compared Bogarde's character to Charlie Chaplin as "Monsieur Verdoux". If one does that (although Chaplin is far more suave), Leighton resembles a rougher version of Martha Raye. But she is also not easy to twist like Washbourne had seemed. So Bogarde aims for Kay Walsh, another older woman with money. He thinks she might be a better target - and then he starts finding her quite unsettling. Is he pursuing Walsh as another Victim, or is she hunting him, and why?The conclusion is quite predictable (unfortunately) due to one of the characters showing up for the last confrontation, suggesting what has to happen to Bogarde. But the acting (especially Leighton's lower class rich woman who is fragile despite her hard shell) is quite good. And Bogarde is such a fascinating creep...as he was in all his villain roles.

Interesting. Until reading these comments, I hadn't realized that this originally was a play in which the lead woman had a dual role - that of victim and nemesis. Interesting because a 1970's "Thriller" episode, "Coffin for the Bride" starring Helen Mirren reminded me very much of this film, "Cast a Dark Shadow" - except that in this case, the star is the male character, and in "Coffin," the star, of course, is Mirren. Nevertheless, "Coffin" seems to have had its roots in this work.The film concerns a younger man married to an older woman who meets her demise earlier than planned due to the fact that, while drunk, her husband misinterprets her intentions regarding a new will. He thinks he's about to be cut out, when in fact, she wants her new will to disinherit her sister and give him even more. He finds out his mistake too late. Never one to dwell on the past, he very soon picks up with a wealthy widow, but though she's in love with him and marries him, she has his number and he can't get his way with her money. Frustrated, he picks up with an attractive, sympathetic, and - need it be said - monied woman looking for real estate in the area.There are some wonderful performances in this film. Dirk Bogarde is a very attractive, if a somewhat obvious slimeball, in a role that has gay overtones with his love of muscle magazines. The real star role belongs to Margaret Lockwood as his lower class wife. She's fantastic with her overly made up face, the cigarette dangling from her hand, her crass voice and her loud laugh. Can this be the sweet young thing of "The Lady Vanishes?" Others in the cast are Mona Washbourne as Bogarde's victim, Robert Flemyng as her suspicious lawyer, Kay Walsh as Bogarde's next target, and Elizabeth Harrison as the maid, who gives a totally believable performance while staying in the background.Unfortunately I guessed the entire plot, including the twist ending, having figured out early on its resemblance to the Thriller episode. However, if you lack that knowledge, you will probably enjoy it even more.