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Better than most people think

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Directed by Leslie Arliss,The Wicked Lady is based on the novel by Magadalen King-Hall.The unmistakable attractions here are the beautiful regency period costumes and James Masons deadly but fascinating love interest.On a peaceful country estate in England all is going well for the kind Caroline(Patricia Roc).She is due to marry handsome landowner Sir Ralph Skelton(Griffith Jones)and all looks perfect until she invites her cousin.Barbara Worth(Margaret Lockwood)accepts her cousins invitation but when she arrives she falls in love with Ralph and seduces him.The heartbroken Caroline(although believing his change of heart to have been all his idea)lets him marry Barabara instead.Soon though the restless Barabara becomes board and fed up with her dull family and friends.She takes to the road one night disguised as a Highwayman and steals some jewels.Going back to the same place again she meets notorious Highwayman Captain Jerry Jackson(James Mason).Mistaking her for a man he warns her to stay away but soon discovers her secret and falls in love with her.Barbara is soon leading an exciting dual life which soon turns deadly after she kills someone.Margeret and James have great chemistry and James although not on screen very much,makes a strong impression when he does,sexy,bold,cruel and not a man to be betrayed.It can only end in tears as Barabara must pay a harsh price for her crimes.Although some of it looks very dated it still stands up well today and is an enjoyable story with memorable characters.

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.

Wonderfully entertaining rogue adventures set in the British countryside in the 17th Century. Scheming, cunning woman steals away the sweetheart of her insipid cousin, only to find marriage and her life of leisure a bore. Longing for excitement--and determined to get back a brooch she lost in a bet--this very wicked lady impersonates the legendary Highwayman, horse-riding robber of coaches at nightfall. Margaret Lockwood initially appears to go over the top in her breathless histrionics...until it becomes clear she's been deliberately directed towards broad villainy (a smart decision since the whole enterprise has an infectious sense of naughty fun). Adaptation of Magdalen King-Hall's novel "The Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton" nearly borders on camp, yet is held in check by a great narrative, fabulous locations, and a first-rate cast. Lively, funny, engaging, with an ironic ending and lots of eye-popping décolletage! Remade in 1983 by Michael Winner, but this version would be hard to top. ***1/2 from ****

Not popular with the critics,and I agree the critical chorus had a certain amount of truth behind it. True, the plot is full-blown melodrama and the characters are pasteboard figures. But what does it matter? Is not extravagant plotting with all its coincidences, unlikely twists and larger than life surprises the stuff that escapist entertainment is made of? Are not players of the calibre of Mason, Lockwood, Rennie, Jones, Aylmer, Roc and Stamp Taylor sufficiently personable and charismatic to breathe life into one-dimensionally written figures? Certainly, I think so (even if Mason himself did not, although undoubtedly one of the causes of his dissatisfaction was the role's brevity).Leslie Arliss has written and directed with verve, pace and style, his script helped by a great deal of witty additional dialogue and catty repartee, his direction aided by Jack Cox's typically moody, gray-toned photography, John Bryan's magnificent sets, Elizabeth Haffenden's eye-catching Restoration costumes. (Perhaps some of the film's enormous success at the box office can be traced to its low-cut, period gowns. It would be hard to deny that Misses Lockwood and Roc fill their costumes most attractively).The Wicked Lady has an undeniable sweep and a vigorous dash that carries the audience right along. It may be too excitingly plotted for some, but it always looks so terribly authentic, it is hard not to be drawn into the machinations of villainess Lockwood or sympathize with the careless, carefree vigor of James Mason's full-blooded Captain Jackson. A welcome cast of deservedly popular support artists help round out the movie's terrific production values. Aside from some obvious process screen effects, no expense has been spared. In fact, this Wicked Lady is lavish to a fault.