The Wicked Lady (1945)

Director:

Leslie Arliss

Writers:

Magdalen King-Hall (novel)
Leslie Arliss (screenplay)

Release Date:

21 December 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama

Plot:

17th-century beauty Barbara Worth starts her career of crime by stealing her best friend's bridegroom...

Plot Keywords:

Highwayman | Mask | Femme Fatale | Beautiful Woman | 1600s

Cast

Margaret Lockwood	...	Barbara Worth
James Mason	...	Captain Jerry Jackson
Patricia Roc	...	Caroline
Griffith Jones	...	Sir Ralph Skelton
Michael Rennie	...	Kit Locksby
Felix Aylmer	...	Hogarth
Enid Stamp-Taylor	...	Lady Henrietta Kingsclere (as Enid Stamp Taylor)
Francis Lister	...	Lord Kingsclere
Beatrice Varley	...	Aunt Moll
Amy Dalby	...	Aunt Doll
Martita Hunt	...	Cousin Agatha
David Horne	...	Martin Worth
Emrys Jones	...	Ned Cotterill
Helen Goss	...	Mistress Betsy
Muriel Aked	...	Mrs. Munce

Runtime:

104 min | USA:97 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (British Acoustic)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG | Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Blickling Hall, Blickling, Norfolk, England, UK

Company:

Gainsborough Pictures

Trivia:

Came ninth in the UK's Ultimate Film, in which films were placed in order of how many seats they sold at cinemas

Goofs:

Factual errors: The newspaper that first reports Barbara's and Jerry's exploits is dated Thursday, November 10th 1683. The 10th was a Saturday.

Quotes:

Barbara Worth: Why did you shoot that horse? I'd rather kill a man any day.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Ultimate Film (2004) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Love Steals Your Heart

Romantic melodrama: rich woman kicks over the traces

This romantic adventure must have seemed shockingly subversive in its day. A wealthy upper class English woman schemes, plots and manipulates everyone around her for her own satisfaction. She uses her privileged position to embark on secret activities of a decidedly anti-social kind. There's a clever sex-role reversal as her activities prove her more daring and dashing than most of the male characters. But naturally there's a tall, dark and handsome stranger to keep up the love interest, and this wicked lady is not backward in coming forward when she meets the right man.

The wishy-washy weakness and gullibility of every other character make the plot unconvincing in the extreme, but those who thirst for Romance will overlook that.