★ 6 / 10
James Mason is the spoiled, somewhat ruthless "Marquis
CinemaSerf
James Mason is the spoiled, somewhat ruthless "Marquis of Rohan" who alights on the charming, if naive, "Clarissa" (Phyllis Calvert) and decides she is to be…
James Mason is the spoiled, somewhat ruthless "Marquis of Rohan" who alights on the charming, if naive, "Clarissa" (Phyllis Calvert) and decides she is to be the mother of his heir. That's all he wants from her. No love or romance - just so long as he gets a child. She grew up with "Hester" (Margaret Lockwood) and when many years later, sees her acting in a play, she asks her to come and live with her in her palatial London home. Her infrequent visitor husband, accepts the idea on the basis that he will have a new playmate and soon the manipulative "Hester" is no longer content to be the mistress, but wants the title too. Add to the mix the gallant "Rokeby" (Stewart Granger), a man who has the measure of the venal and ambitious woman and we have a character driven period drama that moves along quite well for 90 minutes. Mason features sparingly, indeed it is the two ladies who drive much of the intrigue here, and for the most part - though the pace can be terribly slow at times - they do a decent job. The scenes at the end have stayed with me since I first saw this film 45 years ago, and are still pretty chilling. It's very much of it's time, this film. There are scenes and characterisations that don't sit so well 80 years on, but it has a more substantial story than many dramas of it's ilk and is worth watching.
Read full review
★ 8 / 10
The Gypsy Portent and the Woman of Deadly
John Chard
The Gypsy Portent and the Woman of Deadly Nightshade. The Man in Grey is directed by Leslie Arliss and adapted to screenplay by Margaret Kennedy and Doreen…
The Gypsy Portent and the Woman of Deadly Nightshade.
The Man in Grey is directed by Leslie Arliss and adapted to screenplay by Margaret Kennedy and Doreen Montgomery from the novel of the same name written by Eleanor Smith. It stars Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger. Music is By Cedric Mallabey and cinematography by Arthur Crabtree.
A forerunner of Gainsborough’s Wicked Women movies, The Man in Grey is a delicious slice of British noir pie.
Proudly decked out in period attire, story is ripe with dastards, narcissists, connivers, the selfish and the cruel. Headed up by Mason’s Lord Rohan and Lockwood’s Hesther Shaw, these people will stop at nothing to get what they want in life. It doesn’t matter who is around them, friends and family etc, if they can in any way hinder their respective selfish goals then they will be trampled upon and not a further thought will be given. It all simmers to the boiling point where lives will not just be ruined, but also ended.
The four principal players are great, their respective careers well on the way to leaving behind considerable bodies of work. Arliss (The Night Has Eyes) keeps the story simple in spite of the many character strands and traits jostling for meaty exposure, and photographer Crabtree (Waterloo Road) accentuates the miserablist ambiance with sharp black and white lensing.
The use of blackface on white actors is awfully out dated, as is some of the dialogue, but don’t hold these things against The Man in Grey. It’s a darn fine bodice botherer, resplendent with characters straight out of noir’s dark alleyways. 8/10
Read full review
★ 7 / 10
Don't Mess With The Rohan
Lejink
A good old-fashioned bodice-ripper, it was the first big success for Britain's Gainsborough Studios which decided to take on the big costume dramas of…
A good old-fashioned bodice-ripper, it was the first big success for Britain's Gainsborough Studios which decided to take on the big costume dramas of Hollywood with home-grown talent. Introducing to the masses soon-to-be-familiar names like Mason, Granger, Lockwood and Calvert, it set the template for succeeding and ever more successful variations on this particular formula, often employing different combinations of this same quartet of acting talent.High art it isn't, based as it is on a popular novel of the day, but it's easy to imagine its populist and escapist appeal to a wartime audience. James Mason, for one, hated the film and his own acting in it but the fact of the matter is that it's his presence in the titular role, as the misogynistic, sadistic and decadent Lord Rohan, who despite his despised and feared personal characteristics has the fabulous wealth and high status which make him the most desirable bachelor of the day. This is how he meets the pretty, sparky, trusting debutante Clarissa Marr, played by Phyllis Calvert, whose mother offers her to Rohan at what can only be described as a female cattle market, indeed just like all the other mothers and daughters of the day in attendance.However it's not long before the young bride comes to her senses after she does her wifely duty in siring him a son and heir at which opportune moment just when she feels doomed to a loveless marriage, into her life enters Granger's Peter Rokesby, an adventurer fallen on hard times but otherwise dashing, handsome and sincere in his feelings for her which she soon reciprocates.Soon she gets him a place as librarian, of all things, at Rohan Hall but there's a viper in this new love-nest in the shape of the darkly beautiful Hesther Shaw, played with relish by Lockwood. Of low birth but with high ambitions, she uses Clarissa's desire for one good friend in her life to also enter the household and usurp her position as Rohan's woman of choice, becoming effectively his live-in mistress. This ABBA-esque set-up with all four new and ex-lovers under the one roof of course can't last with machinations on all sides of the quadrangle leading up to not one but two murders, one of them infamous for its brutality as Rohan gets the whip-hand over his wife's murderer.Maybe I shouldn't have, but I really enjoyed this Regency romp. I found the "two-good, two-bad" interplay of the four main characters added a degree of psychological intrigue as the plot developed in sometimes surprising ways. It's not perfect, the young black boy (in obvious blackface,
and why did he have to be black anyway?) who plays an important part in the denouement seems to be reading his lines off-screen, the background music is far too intrusive and I disliked the present-day framing device which threw together the descendants of Calvert and Granger to sweeten the ending.But with its handsome and pretty leads, whirlwind action and impressive sets, it's easy to see why it was so successful in its day.
Read full review
63%
AUDIENCE
· 100 ratings
6.5/10
1.8K
•••
This film introduced me to teh amazing Stewart Granger! Thank you for posting so many of his films, I notice he has 3 particular genres: romantic gothic films from the 40s & a bit from the 50s, swashbuckler adventure films from the 50s and a little in the 60s, and western gunslinger from the 50s & 60s! And overall, I have not seen a single bad film of his! I hope you will upload more gainsborough films of his, as well as scaramouch and the prisoner of zenda! He is one of my top favorites, and thank you for introducing me to his magnificent work! What a man! I can't believe he pulls of cocky, snide obnoxious with such charm that you can't help but like him still, or maybe even more because of it!