Briefly after WW2 British cinema had a grown-up phase where sexual and psychological themes were treated with relative depth; The Seventh Veil and The Red Shoes are two classier examples. The Wicked Lady is not classy. In fact it’s sheer unadulterated camp, and stands as perhaps the first calculated attempt at such in British film. Margaret Lockwood, so cute in The Lady Vanishes, has reinvented herself here as cheap Joan Crawford, festooned with thick dark lipstick and displaying massive cleavage. She plays the bad girl who marries a prissy, honorable reformist judge (Griffith Jones), and who takes to highway robbery for a bit of fun, thus meeting up with James Mason as Captain Starlight, accomplished highwayman. It features immortal dialogue such as:
“I drive a hard bargain!”
“Well so do I!”
and
“I told him he could take my jewels but he could never take my honour!”
“And then what happened?”
“He took me jewels.”
The Wicked Lady was a huge hit but it had little cultural impact until its lusty, historically cynical bent later re-emerged in the Hammer Films and Tom Jones. Leslie Arliss directs.
