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The Wicked Lady

The Wicked Lady
Wickedladyposter.jpg
Promotional poster
Directed by Leslie Arliss
Produced by R.J. Minney
Written by Leslie Arliss
Starring Margaret Lockwood
James Mason
Patricia Roc
Griffith Jones
Michael Rennie
Music by Hans May
Cinematography Jack E. Cox
Edited by Terence Fisher
Production
company
Distributed by Eagle-Lion Distributors Limited (U.K.)
Universal (U.S.)
Release date
15 November 1945
Running time
104 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Box office over $1 million (US rentals)
£375,000 (UK) or $2,250,000 (UK)

The Wicked Lady is a 1945 film starring Margaret Lockwood in the title role as a nobleman's wife who secretly becomes a highwayman for the excitement. The film has one of the top audiences ever for a film of its period, 18.4 million It was one of the Gainsborough melodramas, a sequence of very popular films made during the 1940s.

The story was based on the novel The Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton by Magdalen King-Hall, which in turn, was based upon the (disputed) events surrounding the life of Lady Katherine Ferrers, the wife of the major landowner in Markyate on the main London–Birmingham road.

The film was loosely remade by Michael Winner as The Wicked Lady in 1983.

Caroline (Patricia Roc) invites her beautiful, green-eyed friend Barbara (Margaret Lockwood) to her upcoming wedding to wealthy landowner and local magistrate Sir Ralph Skelton (Griffith Jones). A scheming Barbara soon has Sir Ralph totally entranced. Caroline, wishing only his happiness, stands aside, and even allows Barbara to persuade her to be the maid of honour so as to lessen the scandal of the abrupt change of brides. At the wedding reception, Barbara meets a handsome stranger, Kit Locksby (Michael Rennie). It is love at first sight for both, but too late.

Married life on a rural estate does not provide the new Lady Skelton with the excitement she expected and craves. A visit by her detested sister-in-law, Lady Henrietta Kingsclere (Enid Stamp-Taylor), and her husband (Francis Lister) does not lessen her boredom. Henrietta wins Barbara's jewels, including her most-prized possession, her late mother's ruby brooch, in a game of Ombre. A chance remark about the notorious highwayman Captain Jerry Jackson gives Barbara an idea. Masquerading as Jackson, Barbara holds up Henrietta's coach and takes her brooch (as well as the rest of Henrietta's jewellery).


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Wikipedia

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