Whether ingénue or dark lady, Margaret Lockwood was as stunning as they come. 70-80 years after her reign as Britain's most glamorous actress, she's got a following yet is hardly mentioned in conversation along with raven haired beauties like Merle Oberon, Vivien Leigh or Ava Gardner. But as the femme fatale of a slew of Gainsborough films in the 1940's, she has gained a world wide reputation among classic film connoisseurs as one of the best, with American audiences as entranced with her, perhaps more than the others, because she's a new discovery and her films are delightfully decadent. Newly married to staid Ian Hunter, Lockwood's dark beauty Bedelia is as mysterious as she is charming. But there's an unexplained darkness in her, with her eyes widening in horror as various names are dropped, as if she knew at any moment that her past was coming back to haunt her. While husband Hunter just becomes concerned over her change in moods, old friends Barry K. Barnes and Anne Crawford (as well as the nosy servants and nurse) start to have their own suspicions, creating a mystery that will have the audience intrigued as well.I've already been a fan of Lockwood's since first seeing her as the heroine in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes", then finding her Gainsborough films, the best of which are "The Man in Grey" and of course "The Wicked Lady". Those were period films, and while this independent film is modern set, it is as Gothic as the others. By the same author as "Laura" (Vera Caspary), this is not as classic a film, but the pacing and details are quite excellent, slow moving enough to be moody yet never dull. The fact that Lockwood remained loyal to British cinema shows that she cared about art enough to convince her to avoid "going Hollywood".

We know that Margaret Lockwood is up to no good when she refuses to have her photograph taken early on.So this takes away much of the suspense from this film.It is difficult to believe in Lockwood as the serial poisoner as her actions seem at the very least to be eccentric.Her dealings with the black pearl ring,her eventual success in getting the nurse fired and then trying to poison Barry K Barnes and her attempts to go on holiday in the middle of a blizzard.Everything is competently done but rather lacks any flair.Perhaaps it needed a more stylish cast to breathe life into it eg Rathbone and Harding in Love From A Stranger,or better direction eg "Madelaine".Whatever the case this is definitely in the second division of thrillers.

Journeyman director Lance Comfort never did much that wasn't ephemeral and here he turns in another ho-hum melodrama from a novel by Vera Caspary, which the author set in the New England of 1913, on the eve of one war and which now finds itself in Old England in 1945, at the end of another. Margatet Lockwood is clearly hiding a secret or why else would she refuse vehemently to have her photograph taken and Barry K Barnes is equally clearly something more than the artist he purports to be. Alas, it's hard to work up much of a sweat about any of this and though we do stick around for the revelation that Bedelia (Lockwood) is a serial rich husband killer and Barnes is really an insurance investigator it's hard to care one way or the other. The whole thing is done well enough with all departments - script, photography, directing, acting being up to snuff but it really does lack that 'little something extra' that Ellen Terry spoke of. Worth a look but that's all.

Above-average post-War British noir melodrama, based on a novel by Vera (LAURA) Caspay, directed by the prolific Lance Comfort (see also the post-War British 'Spiv' movie SILENT DUST) and starring Margaret (THE WICKED LADY) Lockwood as the titular femme fatale who, as per her Stateside counterparts Gene Tierney (LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN), Lana Turner (THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE) and Barbara Stanwyck (DOUBLE INDEMNITY) offs those men who stand in her way; in this case to collect on their life insurance. Trailed by an apparent artist, the enigmatic and not altogether likeable Ben Chaney (Barry K. Barnes - see also DANCING WITH CRIME), Bedelia finds her path to greater riches (the policy held by her latest wealthy husband, Charlie) thwarted at every turn, before events come to a head in a wintry Gothic country estate in the north of England. The British settings add an air of gentility, but it's the somewhat surprisingly sympathetic take on Lockwood's character that softens the often misogynistic genre set-up as Bedelia, often clad in a variety of striking shimmery creations, actually registers more strongly as a protagonist than the often unemphatic or similarly deceitful supporting characters. Directed at a brisk pace by Comfort, this is an engaging work, that more than hints at simmering tensions beneath a deceptively straightforward drawing-room mise en scene and in which, given the well-upholstered backdrops (as well as Lockwood!), it's not difficult to read the subtext on class (a common enough feature in British genre cinema). This film, whilst not in itself being an upper class work, is a decent enough diversion. Middle-class stuff, then, and none the worse for that.