The Wicked Lady (1945) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by sakana1 ★★★★ 19

  The Wicked Lady simultaneously works flawlessly and doesn't work at all. In terms of the latter, the titular character's remarkable improvisation skills and ability to sell any false emotion as true, render her sincere declarations of love feel laughably insincere. (This would be perfect, since she's a walking deceit bomb, if we weren't expected to immediately accept those declarations at face value.) Though the moments of sincerity don't come very often, when they do, they're genuinely problematic, because they feature a character we're meant to enjoy because of her uncontrollable duplicity suddenly caring about people, literally out of nowhere. It's bizarre that the writers ever thought it would work, and is ultimately a strange moonshot toward purity in a film…

• Review by threepenny ★★★★½ 2

  When Margaret Lockwood gets down on her knees and swears to the priestly man that she will never sin again and repent, the camera cuts to a shot looking at her from inside the fireplace, her kneeling appears as if she is lowering herself into Hell, the flames licking about her. That's all you need to know to see how sincere she really is. She's never satisfied. If she sees something she wants, she takes it. And then she isn't satisfied with that, either. It's the chase that matters, the lies, the deceit, the danger, and most importantly - winning. That gives her a burst of adrenaline, that makes her feel alive. It begins with stealing the husband-to-be of her…

• Review by Carlos Valladares ★★★½

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  The worst thing about The Wicked Lady is how watchable it is. Trash like this can only lead you down the path to ruin. It is so mercilessly engaging, so disgustingly pleasurable. Margaret Lockwood is a high-society woman who, bored with her humdrum aristocratic life, decides to freelance as a scoundrel highwayman. Of course she runs into James Mason, a fellow highwayman, and they fall in love, Trouble in Paradise style but without the Lubitsch sense of economy, off-screen space, or visual sparkle. (All of this, despite the fact that 90% of the dialogue is crude innuendos.)

  There's a perverse delight in the scenes of Mason and Lockwood in action, robbing richies of their jewels, Mr. Mason kissing one of…

• Review by noir1946 ★★★½

  “Who can tell what strange things go on in the human mind?”

  Most of the Gainsborough films are silly and overly melodramatic, and then there’s The Wicked Lady, so ridiculously over the top that it makes the others look like a bunch of punks. Needless to say, it’s a lot of fun.

  “I could never resist something that belonged to someone else.”

  Barbara Worth (Margaret Lockwood) steals the intended, Ralph Skelton (Griffith Jones), of her best friend, Caroline (Patricia Roc), just because he’s rich. Her spoiled recklessness leads Barbara to an unlikely alliance with infamous highwayman Captain Jerry Jackson (James Mason). Sex and violence ensues.

  “You cold-blooded fiend.”

  I don’t care much for Lockwood anywhere but The Lady Vanishes, but…

• Review by Dr. Ethan Lyon ★★★

  2nd Leslie Arliss (after The Man in Grey)
  CW- Sexual assault

  Needed some strong, comforting melodrama tonight and The Wicked Lady delivered in spades. A classic of the Gainsborough bodice-ripper variety, it doesn't entirely hold up well but still has a number of joys to it. Most of them come in the forms of Patricia Roc and Margaret Lockwood, who are both exceedingly pleasant to look at (especially Roc) and are damned good actresses. They were apparently good friends offscreen, and their chemistry shows onscreen, Lockwood playing the titular Wicked Lady and Roc playing her goody-two-shoes friend. In a delicious plot point, Lockwood steals her best friend's hubby and then has her hang around the house as her lady in…

• Review by Yo_Roboto ★★★½ 10

  smh more woke #girlboss nonsense. hollywoke so desperate political pandering strong female protagonist that they're celebrating a women who was a CRIMINAL. why can't they go back to real female heroes like ripley and sarah connor!??! everyone knows women can only be heroes thru motherhood storyliens. thank goodness for james cameron, otherwise we wouldn't even udnestand women at all. thank goodness james cameron invented the vibrator and birth control

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  This is just the classic case of new media movie discovery.

  Watched a youtube doc about English Civil War highwaymen > disappointedly watch A Field in England > read "highwaymen" wikipedia page > click link about "Wicked Lady" thinking hey isn't that that Michael Winner movie with Faye Dunaway I just added to…

• Review by Fint ★★★½ 5

  As the Second World War ground on and the British public got sick to death of flag-waving morale-boosters, Gainsborough Pictures raked in the cash with a series of melodramatic romances set in long ago England. Feeling similarly ground down by merely a couple of weeks of current world events, I thought I would check if Margaret Lockwood's heaving bosom could have the same restorative effects to my spirit. And you know what, it did.

  It's very flouncy and darn silly but it doesn't take itself at all seriously and, while not exactly Carry On Dick, quite a lot of it is played for smiles. Lockwood flashes her wickedness at every opportunity while James Mason licks his lips and Michael Rennie smoulders in the background. And even though a different cut was produced to save innocent American eyes from the fulsome wicked décolletage, the Brits gladly got an eyeful of Margaret's splendidly expressive upper torso.

• Review by russman ★★★½

  James Mason may be wearing a mask, but his voice would still reveal his identity

• Review by nessa ★★★★

  This was utterly captivating! Every performance was fantastic, and the melodrama *chef's kiss* Really one of those instances where it's entirely magnificent! Especially Margaret Lockwood, whose character is utterly contemptible; a character you genuinely love to hate, and hang on to see what she does next, how far she'll sink. A brilliant piece!

• Review by Zoë 🐝 ★★★

  TW: mentions of sexual assault

  I watched "The Man in Grey" on Criterion Channel months ago, then said I would watch "The Wicked Lady" soon after. The thing is, "The Man in Grey" sucks. I hate it. It's also unbelievably boring. So it took me forever to actually get around to "The Wicked Lady" because of this. While "The Wicked Lady" is no masterpiece, it's entertaining and ridiculous, and shamelessly fun.

  Margaret Lockwood (who plays Barbara) finds an impressive balance between allowing her character to be an absolutely dreadful person, a murderer, an adulterer, a thief, while also being interesting enough that the audience won't write her off and tune out. I honestly don't know how she made me like…

• Review by rischka ★★★

  the characters are thin and the plot is ludicrous, dialogue hilariously droll and acting often melodramatic... but it's just so much fun. margaret lockwood is a hoot as the villainous barbara worth, who steals her cousin's rich fiancee but meets her own true love at the wedding (never mind they've barely spoken to each other). soon bored with her dull husband and provincial life, she starts spending nights abroad as a highwaywoman under the tutelage of the dashing james mason! since her husband is the local magistrate things grow ever more complicated. the most successful of the lavish gainsborough costume dramas and the definition of guilty pleasure, notoriously reshot to please american censors bothered by too much cleavage

• Review by Cate ★★★★½

  Well, my bold, bad, Barbara – so you're afraid of me at last.

  A high trash, bodice ripping melodrama with an incredible concept: Margaret Lockwood, bored society lady, a full face of makeup hidden underneath her highwayman's mask as she robs her friends' coaches in the pursuit of new sensations. Patricia Roc as her kind cousin, losing every man to her diabolical seductiveness. James Mason, her criminal beau. Wigs, tit*, twirly moustaches, nice weather for a hanging.