The Wicked Lady (1945)

Film: The Wicked Lady (1945)

Stars: Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Patricia Roc, Griffith Jones, Michael Rennie

Director: Leslie Arliss

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Margaret Lockwood-click here to learn more about Ms. Lockwood (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week, Margaret Lockwood's career had entered a new chapter.  The success of her role in The Man in Gray made Lockwood a major name in British cinema (though she never translated in the same way in the United States), and she enjoyed a string of successes, though it was clear that Lockwood's talents (and where audiences wanted to see her) were in melodramas, similar to The Man in Gray.  This is what led to today's film, another that reunited her with her leading man from that film (James Mason) and director Leslie Arliss.  The Wicked Lady would be the highlight of Lockwood's career-her biggest financial success, a critical hit, & arguably the most important (non-Hitchcock) film that she's associated with.  It's also SO much fun.

(Spoilers Ahead) Okay, this movie has just a gigantic amount of plot, and I'm not going to be able to do it justice, but I will try my best.  The film centers initially around Caroline (Roc), a riotous woman who has invited her beautiful cousin Barbara (Lockwood) to her wedding, but when Barbara arrives she falls madly in love with Barbara's fiancé, Sir Ralph (Jones), who also happens to be loaded.  It turns out that Barbara isn't in love with Ralph, and she learns that on her wedding night when she meets the dashing Kit (Rennie), but it's too late.  As the film goes on, though, we kind of understand that what Barbara really loves is sadism, taking things that don't belong to her & punishing everyone who isn't Barbara.  She takes up a life of crime, stealing from horse carriages, eventually joining notorious bandit Jerry Jackson (Mason), but even that's not enough, and she begins to murder people who attempt to expose her life of crime.  The film ends with Jerry being killed by Barbara, and Barbara intent on offing her husband so she can be with Kit...but a masked Barbara instead is murdered by Kit, who doesn't know he's killing his love.  The final death scene has Barbara confessing everything to Kit, hopeful that she can gain some sort of absolution, but he leaves her none, and lets her die alone.

The movie is fascinating, almost as if it's a Roger Corman picture with its overacting & tasty melodrama.  Similar to The Man in Gray, it is indulgent and nowhere near subtlety, bawdy & sexual, but it totally works.  The film is sinister fun, like a Classic Hollywood version of Gone Girl, with everyone involved leaning heavily into the sharp, soap opera plot lines & ridiculous camp.  Occasionally it's slightly too long (trim maybe ten minutes off of the movie & it'd be the kind you'd constantly re-watch), but it's so scrumptious you won't really care.

Lockwood is marvelous.  This is the sort of heightened acting exercise that others might not enjoy, but I was enthralled by it, as she so fully commits to this woman who cannot understand why she does truly terrible things, an adrenaline junkie who cannot help but destroy everyone for her own pleasure.  It says something about Lockwood that she overshadows all her costars in the movie, even constant scene-stealer James Mason.  Bordering between Faye Dunaway in Network and Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest, she completely commits to this performance in a way that just wasn't done in Hollywood's Golden Age, and while she's not a truly great actress in the sense of a Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck, I'm kind of flummoxed how her work & acting hasn't been rediscovered by cinephiles.  Thankfully, we have one more film next week to enjoy our star.