Craptacular classic of British cinema, made by people who never quite matched this again (in their homeland at least - Michael Rennie and James Mason went on to do fine work in Hollywood).It remains the quintessential Margaret Lockwood performance, all flaring nostrils and gestures; you can't say its great acting but its very effective and still works today, helped considerably by all the cleavage showing costumes she wears. It's a terrific role and she really goes to town - I mean a woman who pinches her best friend's fiancee then takes to the highway because she's bored... it doesn't get much better than that. And it's only because mum died - fantastic!
Very adult compared to Hollywood films of this time - it's fairly explicit Lockwood has sex with Griffith Jones before marriage, and with Mason; she catches Mason in bed with another woman; Mason rapes her (which is a bit dodgy). Rarely has a film whacked its subtext over the audience's head with less subtlety - it's like in every scene a caption scrolls across the bottom of the screen: "this is the subtext: XXX".
James Mason stands out in a role originally meant for Stewart Granger (a precursor of Granger's poor knack of picking projects, which wasn't so bad in Britain but which would become endemic in Hollywood); Pat Roc is also effective in the Phyllis Calvert role, as is Michael Rennie. Even Griffin Jones, who starts out so wet, develops a bit of spine and gets stuck into things.
Riotous fun, a landmark in its own way, and they never managed to successfully repeat it - Leslie Arliss never made another well known film, nor did Lockwood or Pat Roc really.
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