Ah, The Wicked Lady...Gainsborough's most wickedly enjoyable film of them all! While my favourite Gainsborough (and the one I believe is the best) remains Madonna Of The Seven Moons, The Wicked Lady is endlessly enjoyable.
Here we have, set in Regency England, a completely amoral, deliciously BAD villianess, Lady Barbara Skelton, flaunting every social convention and loving it! She steals her best friend Caroline's (the lovely Patricia Roc)husband-to-be Sir Ralph (the milksop Griffith Jones), marries him, takes to life as a highway woman for thrills (and there she meets an even bigger thrill in the form of Captain Jerry Jackson, a deliciously sexy James Mason), murders a few people (one of Ralph's tenants, her bible-quoting servant Hogarth and Mason-after a couple of attempts, perhaps as payback for her whipping from Mason two years earlier!), all the while pining over Kit (Michael Rennie), the man who "would have married her if he had met her the day before her wedding"- and she ends up shot by Kit, dying in the ultimate act of ironic justice, in his arms as she makes a dying confession of her numerous sins.
Sounds like a riot, doesn't it? It is! It's completely outrageous and so, so much fun! I never get bored watching this film. Here's why:
-Lockwood's Barbara is just so darn enjoyable to watch. The raven-haired villianess (symbolically clothed in black) sweeps into and ruins young cousin Caroline's life after the girl makes the biggest mistake a pretty young damsel has ever made in pictures; inviting Lockwood to her wedding. Lockwood, after her success as the social-climbing Hesther in The Man In Grey, became Gainsborough's chief villianess, perhaps by virtue of her raven locks and buxom appearance. And she's good here too- the Gainsborough actors could actually act, and it is a credit to their abilities and screen charisma that they make these outlandish plots work, but make them so darn watchable! Trust Barbara at your peril, folks!
-James Mason's sexy highwayman. Let it be said that I love Mason- I know that he hated his Gainsborough years, and the terrible scripts he got, but he actually is damn good in these films! Here he is sardonic and witty and even though he may have hated the film (he punched director Arliss on the nose on the first day of filming) he looks as if he is having a good time, spitting out racy lines of dialogue with relish. Those encounters with Lockwood at the inn and by the lakeside in the moonlit are HOT! If I was Barbara I would forget about Rennie altogether, turf her wedding ring back at Ralph (which she never wanted anyway, she never loved him, only his money!) and run off with Jackson! Any normal female would want to be his Doxy for all time...
-The set design and costuming. Ah, Maryiot Cells looks lovely and the controversy over the girl's plunging cleavage is always a fun story to tell
-The unusually racy dialogue, and it's frank awareness of sex. You've got to love Mason's retort to Barbara when she complains, on their first meeting "Do you always take women by the throat?" "No, I just take them". And it gets better! At the inn, between Barbara and Jackson...
Barbara (after Mason takes off his mask!): You remind me of a man I knew Jackson: A lover? Barbara: We met but once...and the moment was not...proficious
And when Lockwood starts spending her nights robbing the highways with her lover... Griffith Jones: "I don't like this lying in bed half the day Lockwood: Why should it worry you, as long as I am always unaccompanied?"
-Patricia Roc and Jean Kent. Two great actresses. Oh, Lockwood is decent too, but I feel Kent was the most talent of the Gainsborough girls, and, unfortunately the most under-used (she only really gets a chance to shine under the Gainsborough banner in the fun Caravan as a sexy Spanish gypsy girl). Here she gets but two minutes of screen time, but, as always, makes a lasting impression as Mason's original doxy. There is a lovely story about Kent and Mason whilst making the film....
"During The Wicked Lady, we were sitting in this cart going to the execution. They (the producers) wanted me to be pale and wan, and so I didn't have any make-up on. He looked across at me and said, 'You should never wear make-up. You look so wonderful as you are.'" (Jean Kent)
And Roc is no slouch either! Noel Coward called her a "complete actress" and she, like De Havilland in Gone With The Wind, brings so much belief and quiet skill to her roles as the second-lead good-girl that you wholly believe her character (Calvert had this quality too). She got the chance to diverge and play the bitch twice at Gainsborough to Lockwood's heroine in Jassy and Love Story but she was always the erstwhile second lead. The girls fare much better than the guys (Mason excluded, he is always great!) here. Jones and Rennie seem swamped by their colourless roles and Lockwood's dominant bitch performance. Maybe Stewart Granger would have worked better in Rennie's role...I'm sure he would have!
-The supporting cast. Alymer is a hoot as Hogarth (taking more than a few leafs from Wuthering Heights Joseph), Enid Stamp-Taylor is priceless as Henrietta and the inimitable Martita Hunt is fun as one of the servants, noting sagely (before Barbara's arrival) "Cats have green eyes. I don't like cats". Needless to say, Barbara has green eyes!
Here we have, set in Regency England, a completely amoral, deliciously BAD villianess, Lady Barbara Skelton, flaunting every social convention and loving it! She steals her best friend Caroline's (the lovely Patricia Roc)husband-to-be Sir Ralph (the milksop Griffith Jones), marries him, takes to life as a highway woman for thrills (and there she meets an even bigger thrill in the form of Captain Jerry Jackson, a deliciously sexy James Mason), murders a few people (one of Ralph's tenants, her bible-quoting servant Hogarth and Mason-after a couple of attempts, perhaps as payback for her whipping from Mason two years earlier!), all the while pining over Kit (Michael Rennie), the man who "would have married her if he had met her the day before her wedding"- and she ends up shot by Kit, dying in the ultimate act of ironic justice, in his arms as she makes a dying confession of her numerous sins.
Sounds like a riot, doesn't it? It is! It's completely outrageous and so, so much fun! I never get bored watching this film. Here's why:
-Lockwood's Barbara is just so darn enjoyable to watch. The raven-haired villianess (symbolically clothed in black) sweeps into and ruins young cousin Caroline's life after the girl makes the biggest mistake a pretty young damsel has ever made in pictures; inviting Lockwood to her wedding. Lockwood, after her success as the social-climbing Hesther in The Man In Grey, became Gainsborough's chief villianess, perhaps by virtue of her raven locks and buxom appearance. And she's good here too- the Gainsborough actors could actually act, and it is a credit to their abilities and screen charisma that they make these outlandish plots work, but make them so darn watchable! Trust Barbara at your peril, folks!
-James Mason's sexy highwayman. Let it be said that I love Mason- I know that he hated his Gainsborough years, and the terrible scripts he got, but he actually is damn good in these films! Here he is sardonic and witty and even though he may have hated the film (he punched director Arliss on the nose on the first day of filming) he looks as if he is having a good time, spitting out racy lines of dialogue with relish. Those encounters with Lockwood at the inn and by the lakeside in the moonlit are HOT! If I was Barbara I would forget about Rennie altogether, turf her wedding ring back at Ralph (which she never wanted anyway, she never loved him, only his money!) and run off with Jackson! Any normal female would want to be his Doxy for all time...
-The set design and costuming. Ah, Maryiot Cells looks lovely and the controversy over the girl's plunging cleavage is always a fun story to tell
-The unusually racy dialogue, and it's frank awareness of sex. You've got to love Mason's retort to Barbara when she complains, on their first meeting "Do you always take women by the throat?" "No, I just take them". And it gets better! At the inn, between Barbara and Jackson...
Barbara (after Mason takes off his mask!): You remind me of a man I knew Jackson: A lover? Barbara: We met but once...and the moment was not...proficious
And when Lockwood starts spending her nights robbing the highways with her lover... Griffith Jones: "I don't like this lying in bed half the day Lockwood: Why should it worry you, as long as I am always unaccompanied?"
-Patricia Roc and Jean Kent. Two great actresses. Oh, Lockwood is decent too, but I feel Kent was the most talent of the Gainsborough girls, and, unfortunately the most under-used (she only really gets a chance to shine under the Gainsborough banner in the fun Caravan as a sexy Spanish gypsy girl). Here she gets but two minutes of screen time, but, as always, makes a lasting impression as Mason's original doxy. There is a lovely story about Kent and Mason whilst making the film....
"During The Wicked Lady, we were sitting in this cart going to the execution. They (the producers) wanted me to be pale and wan, and so I didn't have any make-up on. He looked across at me and said, 'You should never wear make-up. You look so wonderful as you are.'" (Jean Kent)
And Roc is no slouch either! Noel Coward called her a "complete actress" and she, like De Havilland in Gone With The Wind, brings so much belief and quiet skill to her roles as the second-lead good-girl that you wholly believe her character (Calvert had this quality too). She got the chance to diverge and play the bitch twice at Gainsborough to Lockwood's heroine in Jassy and Love Story but she was always the erstwhile second lead. The girls fare much better than the guys (Mason excluded, he is always great!) here. Jones and Rennie seem swamped by their colourless roles and Lockwood's dominant bitch performance. Maybe Stewart Granger would have worked better in Rennie's role...I'm sure he would have!
-The supporting cast. Alymer is a hoot as Hogarth (taking more than a few leafs from Wuthering Heights Joseph), Enid Stamp-Taylor is priceless as Henrietta and the inimitable Martita Hunt is fun as one of the servants, noting sagely (before Barbara's arrival) "Cats have green eyes. I don't like cats". Needless to say, Barbara has green eyes!