Cast a Dark Shadow

I tuned into this movie not realizing I had seen it years earlier, so I didn't pay a lot of attention to the opening credits or the set up. I was soon hooked - all over again. This is a thoroughly engaging movie with a twisted plot line. A thrilling English mystery with a wink and a nod.

Dirk Bogarde plays an absolute cad with a caviar appetite and a beer purse. He marries a tattered old English matron for her money, but misses the mark when she fails to include him in her will. They do a scene at a seaside tea house that is not to be missed. Listen for the lilting melody of the all girl band. He needs another sugar mama before his money runs out, and heads back to the tea house for another try. For a dapper dude, he really does not know how to pick them. This time his target is a shop worn widow played to the nines by Margaret Lockwood.It took me until halfway through the second viewing to figure out she was the same actress that played the naive ingénue in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes". Not only does she outguess him, she outfoxes him. About this time, I began to think he ought to get another line of work. Margaret Lockwood makes him look like an amateur. Instead of her being a rich, vulnerable pigeon, she turns out to be very savvy slut who one ups him at every turn.

There is a real mind bender ending, but I would never screw the reader by revealing it. Every time I thought I had this movie figured, I got hit with one surprise after another until about four minutes before the ending credits rolled. Give this movie a play, but only if you have the time to give it the attention it deserves. For me, most of the delicious moments are quite subtle. I gave this movie a 9/10 and I'm a stingy voter.

Margaret Lockwood is so good as the hardened widow Mrs. Jeffries, it's almost scary. Those initial encounters between her and Bare (Bogarde) are like two sharks searching for a soft spot. Seldom has a courtship been more cynically reduced to a conjugation of bank balances than in this bleak little exercise. I love that tacky seaside club where they first meet with its empty tables and off-key musicians that reeks of faded gentility. Bogarde is all oily charm and greed, while Lockwood has seen it all, yet somewhere still wants to believe. Their prickly coupling is to marriage what he Hitler-Stalin pact was to peace treaties. Certainly, no one can accuse the writers of loading up with sympathetic characters. In fact, only the pathetic housekeeper Emmie invites empathy—Kathleen Harrison in a slyly bravura performance.

In my book, the movie's an excellent little thriller up to the point where the screenplay has Bogarde go bonkers. To that point, he's been all cold calculation and self-possession, an impressive study in ruthless boyish charm. However, by suddenly collapsing that cold confidence into a blubbering psychotic, the screenplay undercuts both the character menace and the dramatic tension. I'm just wondering whether some watchdog group insisted that the character be exposed as a weakling in order to undercut Bogarde's appeal as a villain. However that may be, the movie remains an atmospheric, well-mounted little thriller, unusually well acted.

The inimitable Dirk Bogarde stars as Edward (Teddy) Bare, he is a ladies' man – that is on occasion that the lady is filthy rich. He has married wealthy but older Monica (Mona Washbourne) and thinks he will inherit all her money as he is her spouse. However, she wants to make a will, so he decides it might be time for him to become a widower a little sooner than had been expected.

Alas he gets it all wrong and so is left 'financially embarrassed'. Well as he has gotten away with murder once he decides he needs another Mrs Money bags with a short potential life span and so he puts another dastardly plan into action.

This is lovely for all the right reasons. Bogarde as the deranged yet charming killer is just excellent – his facial expressions alone make this film. The supporting cast including Margaret Lockwood and Kathleen Harrison as the maid are all superb and totally believable in their respective roles. This was an adaptation of a play and that come across at times but it does not matter as this is a 'sit back and enjoy film' of how the other half once lived and more importantly died – recommended to all fans of old black and white British crime flicks.

It's a load of old tosh but its also a lot of fun with a grand cast pulling out all the stops. Dirk Bogarde is the psychopathic killer who does away with rich wife Mona Washbourne, making her death look like an accident but when he finds she's made a will leaving all her money to her sister in Jamacia he marries Margaret Lockwood for her money only to find she's not quite so easy to get rid off. They, as well as Kay Walsh as a rich newcomer to the district and Kathleen Harrison as a slightly dotty maid, are all at the top of their game and Lewis Gilbert directs as if he actually wanted us to take all of this seriously. It may stick very much to its one-room set, betraying its theatrical origins, but thanks to Gilbert and cinematographer Jack Asher it remains resolutely cinematic.

Cast A Dark Shadow casts Dirk Bogarde as a 50s edition of Bluebeard who marries and murders them. He's got a nice deadly charm to get the women to trust him.

This film has Bogarde involved with three different women. He's met and married Mona Washburne who is a good deal older than he. And a very clever job it was, fooled the coroner completely. But lo and behold she had not changed her will to include him. All he's left with is the house itself, all monies went to Washburne's sister living in Jamaica.

Which leaves him on the prowl to find an additional wealthy woman to provide for him. At a seaside resort he finds the tart tongued Margaret Lockwood who finds his charm irresistible, but she's canny on money matters.and she's not co-mingling the assets in any way.

So he moves on to Kay Walsh an even wealthier woman looking to buy property in the area. All the while getting a little more manic about money.

Bogarde is also quite manic about Robert Flemyng who was Washburne's attorney who has never liked Bogarde, suspects foul play but can't prove anything.

Bogarde is one clever and ruthless killer, but there's a con being worked on him and he doesn't catch on until too late.

There's an additional role of prominence here, that of Kathleen Harrison as Washburne's maid. She's really charming in her own way, an innocent old maid working in all this evil. Lockwood too emerged from her 40s roles when she was cast as a delicate beauty for the most part in costume dramas. She's got quite the tongue and is no one's fool. But she has her hormonal needs.

Cast A Dark Shadow holds up very well for today's audience. It's a timeless tale of greed and corruption.