The Wicked Lady (1946)

Best movie of this year hands down!

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

So much average

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

If you were attempting to define a typical Gainsborough movie this is the one you would cite; costume picture, tick; melodrama, tick; hoke, tick; cardboard characters, tick; studios' poster girls and boys, tick. As wartime escapism goes this was as good as it got albeit it appeared at the tail end of the war. Margaret Lockwood appeared to be auditioning for a cross between Scarltett O'Hara and almost any Bette Davis role. It must have been a treat for twenty-something moviegoers of the day to find Lockwood, Mason, Roc, and Kent sharing a screen with Granger and Calvert threatening to emerge at any moment and the likes of Martita Hunt and Felix Aylmer making up the numbers. For Nostalgics only.

I just thrilled to this movie, gorgeous James Mason was so dashing as Captain Jackson, I would have loved to swoon into his arms myself. I didn't really care that Margaret Lockwood's part called for her to be so mercenary and completely cold blooded - you almost felt in sympathy for her. After years of war time austerity and a cinema that reflected that terrible period of strife and suffering ("The Way Ahead", "One of Our Aircraft is Missing") Britain seemed ripe for a complete change of movie going pace. Gainsborough came to the rescue with "The Man in Grey" and a couple of years after, the same team (Leslie Arliss, director, James Mason, leading man and Margaret Lockwood, actress) topped their earlier effort with "The Wicked Lady". It was the biggest hit of the year and while universally scorned by critics, it was the quintessential Gainsborough Gothic costume melodrama and audiences, weary of contemporary wartime drama, flocked to it in droves.Caro (Patricia Roc) a "poor relation" is about to marry Sir Ralph (Griffith Jones) and is thrilled that her dearest friend, her cousin Barbara (Lockwood) has consented to be her maid of honour. That is the last time that Caro will be genuinely happy to see her cousin in this movie, I can tell you. Barbara is filled with hate and envy of Caro, who was bought up in wealth and luxury while she was sent to a strict, moralistic aunt. She is determined to win Sir Ralph away from Caro, just because she can, and a runaway horse (set to gallop on purpose of course) gives her the opportunity that she needs and Caro tearfully gives Ralph up. She cries that Barbara can even have her wedding dress but Barbara secretly whispers to herself "I wouldn't even be buried in it"!!! Surrounded by such milksops, is it any wonder that Barbara garners a trifle of the audience sympathy.At the wedding reception she meets her next conquest, Kit, (Michael Rennie), they kiss, cause a slight scandal and she then settles down to married life. Which she finds the epitome of boredom!! so she looks to a new adventure. When she loses her mother's brooch during a game of cards and someone cautions against highwaymen, especially the notorious Captain Jackson, Barbara dons suitable attire and goes out to steal her jewelry back. So begins her highway escapade until she meets the real Captain Jackson and sparks fly!! After the stiff upper lip dramas that flooded London cinemas during the war, audiences must have rejoiced in this bawdy Restoration romp, with phrases like "she was my first doxy" and scenes that didn't leave much to an audience's imagination.When cold blooded Barbara comes across Jackson in the arms of his "first doxy" (an unbilled Jean Kent) she has no hesitation in turning him over to the authorities - they had separated months before when Barbara, in her highway disguise accidentally kills a young coach driver and Jackson, who wants no part in killing, goes his own way. Barabara, who lets nothing stand in her way, blythly poisons an old family retainer when he learns of her secret identity. Her complacency turns to fear when she realises that Jackson, far from being hung, has been secretly cut down by his friends and is alive and well and surprises Barbara in her room where he drags her to the bedroom....Before it could be shown in the U.S., production code officials demanded that the movie be re-edited to tone down the low bodiced cleavage of it's too volupturous leading ladies. It was a mammoth task and Margaret Lockwood and beautiful Patricia Roc were even recalled to re shoot scenes in less bawdy costumes that they had completed more than a year previously. Because of the lucrativeness of the American market, the producers had little choice but to comply.Highly Recommended.

Margaret Lockwood portrays a real 17th century tramp in this 1945 film which really has some amateurish writing when you think of it.Ms. Lockwood steals her cousin's fiancée on the day of the latter's wedding. She does it in faster mode than when Scarlett O'Hara stole Frank Kennedy from Sue Ellen in "Gone With the Wind."Barbara (Lockwood) could never be satisfied with one man. She goes from man to man. The woman has more lust in her life than can ever be imagined. She even cavorts with Michael Rennie on her wedding day.When she loses a brooch to her stuffy sister-in-law, she embarks upon a career of crime as a highway robber to get it back.This is a story of a woman who could not be with a man for a moment. James Mason appears as her new lover and fellow thief.Patricia Roc is sympathetic and overly sweet as Caroline, the cousin who lost her fiancée and stays on in the house. To think, we thought that Olivia De Havilland was such a sap in "Gone With the Wind." Roc even has her beat here.Of course, we can't allow for Barbara to get away with a life of crime as well as murder. She gets better with a gun than Annie Oakley did and kills 2 people along the way. Poor old, Felix Aylmer, she does him in via the poison route. What a fool he plays, quoting from the bible while actually believing that Barbara will reform.The ending is of course that Barbara gets what she deserves so that husband Griffin Jones should be able to go back to Caroline, the woman he should not have ditched to begin with. Imagine, Jones and Rennie were willing to switch women, but this was unknown to Barbara so she plots to put a bullet in Jones but instead, she gets shot by lover Rennie in her disguise as a robber!Come on. The writing here is actually churlish.

I was looking forward to viewing this old British costume drama,after hearing a lot about it. I was a little disappointed.James Mason was my reason for seeking out this film,but he does not appear that much.His dashing highwayman is fun to watch,but he has too little screen time to make him memorable.Griffith Jones is a bore along with the other male actors except for Felix Aylmer.His turn as the bible-quoting servant is the best thing about this movie.Margaret Lockwood's wicked lady is way over the top.The whole movie is filled to the brim with melodrama and racy dialog.Some of the dialog must have been quite shocking 60 years ago.Today it is amusing,and makes a rainy afternoon pass enjoyably.