Anyone game for a bit of bodice-ripping need look no further than this.
Here is a 'lady' who has everything, but is bored stiff. Here is a fem-fatale who is truly fatal. Why; she's rotten to the core. What fun! When not attending to polite social gatherings, she is out on the road committing highway robbery. It's dangerous, daring, dark - and a bigger buzz than sex. Or so it seems to her. On one of these escapades she encounters a true highwayman - played to crooked, courtly perfection by James Mason - and a new dimension of excitement and pleasure is opened to her wastrel life. They are lovers and competitors, and wicked both. There can only be one outcome. Who is the more devious and deadly of the two? Margaret Lockwood was the ideal choice for this wonderful period romp. She oozes with a ruthless sexuality that is guaranteed to get bosoms heaving on either side of the gender divide. And - my - what bosoms there were indeed! Apparently, the whole production had to be re-worked in order to pacify the more tender American sensibilities. Which is rather funny when you think how stuffy we British are always purported to be.
When I saw this movie for the first time, though many years after its original release, I was pretty shocked. I am of the last generation that was raised to regard the female as some kind of virtuous paragon, the keeper of society's moral keys. This movie showed her as quite the opposite, and indeed - from a Darwinian standpoint - the more honest representation.
Both of the lead characters are as anti-heroic imaginable, with the female being the more ruthless and less susceptible of the two. That's a complete inversion of cultural and cinematic ideals. Released so long ago, it must have been a tremendous head-turner in its day, and no little inspiration to closet feminists.
As a character, it's interesting to compare her with the heroine of 'Gone With The Wind'. In Scarlet O'Hara we have an equally ruthless, self-centred female, no less cold-blooded and brutal. She steals, swindles, and lies. See her petulantly beating an exhausted pony to death. And yet she survives and is lauded as a feminist icon, whereas Britain's wicked lady gets what both deserved.
Take a look if you get the chance. To see James Mason strike sparks off Margaret Lockwood is worth the price alone. If you can think of a better movie from 1945, I'd like to know what it is.
The conflicts of sexual power don't get more artful than this portrayal.
Here is a 'lady' who has everything, but is bored stiff. Here is a fem-fatale who is truly fatal. Why; she's rotten to the core. What fun! When not attending to polite social gatherings, she is out on the road committing highway robbery. It's dangerous, daring, dark - and a bigger buzz than sex. Or so it seems to her. On one of these escapades she encounters a true highwayman - played to crooked, courtly perfection by James Mason - and a new dimension of excitement and pleasure is opened to her wastrel life. They are lovers and competitors, and wicked both. There can only be one outcome. Who is the more devious and deadly of the two? Margaret Lockwood was the ideal choice for this wonderful period romp. She oozes with a ruthless sexuality that is guaranteed to get bosoms heaving on either side of the gender divide. And - my - what bosoms there were indeed! Apparently, the whole production had to be re-worked in order to pacify the more tender American sensibilities. Which is rather funny when you think how stuffy we British are always purported to be.
When I saw this movie for the first time, though many years after its original release, I was pretty shocked. I am of the last generation that was raised to regard the female as some kind of virtuous paragon, the keeper of society's moral keys. This movie showed her as quite the opposite, and indeed - from a Darwinian standpoint - the more honest representation.
Both of the lead characters are as anti-heroic imaginable, with the female being the more ruthless and less susceptible of the two. That's a complete inversion of cultural and cinematic ideals. Released so long ago, it must have been a tremendous head-turner in its day, and no little inspiration to closet feminists.
As a character, it's interesting to compare her with the heroine of 'Gone With The Wind'. In Scarlet O'Hara we have an equally ruthless, self-centred female, no less cold-blooded and brutal. She steals, swindles, and lies. See her petulantly beating an exhausted pony to death. And yet she survives and is lauded as a feminist icon, whereas Britain's wicked lady gets what both deserved.
Take a look if you get the chance. To see James Mason strike sparks off Margaret Lockwood is worth the price alone. If you can think of a better movie from 1945, I'd like to know what it is.
The conflicts of sexual power don't get more artful than this portrayal.