User reviews

A busy, almost overwrought period melodrama from Gainsborough that's so plot-heavy no scene seems to last longer than 30 seconds. The studio clearly lavished plenty of money on the production, and the stars give it their all to make Jassy an enjoyable, if slightly silly, watch.

The last film in the popular Gainsborough Studios costume cycle is certainly beautiful to look at with sumptuous Technicolor and the company's biggest ever budget for lavish period sets.Dramatically the direction is rather lifeless with bitty editing and short Tv style scenes.The second half of the film is much better with an authorititive performance from star Margaret Lockwood and a nasty villain in Basil Sydney. Patricia Roc has a less sympathetic role than usual as the wilful, amoral Dilys but the film really misses the star power of Stewart Granger and James Mason who,several years earlier, would have played the roles take by Sydney and Dermot Walsh.A happy ending is substituted for the tragic one in the original novel..

In a film which is great fun and really gives you an idea of the social manners of the period there are two outstanding pieces of casting.

One is Basil Sidney who gives a bravura performance wonderfully sustained over the entire film. I am amazed he did not become a major star.

Two I simply don't understand the attraction of Esma Cannon. She may have been cast well in other films but this is one of the worst pieces of casting I have ever seen. Far too old for the part, Esma doesn't help it by overreacting fantastically throughout the entire film.

This is an enjoyable movie, (though a bit on the melodramatic side) made better by the performance of Margaret Lockwood in the title role. (She seems mean for costume dramas, though in this film she no wicked lady.) Jassy is part gypsy and has a touch of psychic power, as she has premonitions that more often than not come true. She also has eyes for Barney Hatton (Dermot Walsh), but his eyes are reserved for Dilys (Patricia Dos), a shallow, rather fickle young woman, whose father, Nick (Basil Sydney) has won Barney's family estate from his chronic gambling father, who later kills himself.

That's not the only tragedy, as Jassy's father is shot by Nick in a dispute over workers' rights, and then dies. (Jassy had a vision of this, while it was happening.) When he begins working the school that Dilys attends, the two become friends (a bit reluctantly on Jassy's part, both because of her father and Dily's penchant for getting into trouble) and soon Dilys invites her home, where Nick takes a fancy to her. Dilys has more than her share of suitors (she planned to elope with one, but he rejected her) yet continues to string Barney along, despite having no intention of marrying him.

Jassy, meanwhile, makes such a favorable impression on Nick that he hires her as housekeeper (I like the way she keeps the servants in line, fires the ones that deserve it, and sees the hard workers get rewarded). One of the servants on the estate is a mute girl, named Lindy (she stopped speaking after she tried to stop her father from beating her mother and he hit her in the face with a horsewhip), whom others refer to as "the loony". She becomes fond of Jassy, who sticks up for her, and this plays a part in the drama that's to come.

Jassy suspects Barney's more in love with regaining the family estate than with vain, selfish Dilys, and when Nick asks her to marry him (his wife died shortly after running away with her lover, whom Nick almost killed in a fight), she sees an opportunity to both help Barney and get revenge on Nick.

Not long after their marriage (which Jassy insists will be in name only), Nick has a riding accident, recovers under Jassy's care, then dies under suspicious circumstances....

And there I leave it, so as not to give the whole story away. Give this movie a try, I don't think you'll regret it.

Margaret Lockwood is good in this sinister tale of 17th Century British mysticism. She is the eponymous character who can sense impending doom. A dangerous occupation back then, but luckily (or not) local landowner "Barney Hatton" (Dermot Walsh) sees a way of using her to help restore his family fortunes lost by his father (Dennis Price) at the hands of the pretty odious "Helmer" (Basil Sydney). As the plot unravels, we discover that "Jassy" has her own particular axe to grind too - and, well let's just say you wouldn't want to be "Helmer"! The look of the film has something of the Daphne du Maurier about it, but the plot is a little too slow to develop, and there is much too much dialogue. Still, Lockwood is well worth watching here - as usual - and there is just enough menace provided by the eerily lit and well scored production to keep this interesting.

Muriel Box grumbled to her diary when Gainsborough's first film in Technicolor hit screens "Bad notices, bad film - huge commercial success".

A barnstorming gothic melodrama set in 1830 with glowing Technicolor photography by Geoffrey Unsworth sweeping about Maurice Carter's sets, it enabled audiences suffering the daily realities of life in postwar austerity Britain to wallow in the vicissitudes of an era even harsher than their own while savouring the brightly coloured frocks devised by Elizabeth Haffenden for Margaret Lockwood & Patricia Roc.

It is also awash with familiar faces, although they are seldom onscreen for very long; notable exceptions being Basil Sydney as the riding crop-wielding meanie Jassy marries for the house he won off Denis Price playing cards; and Esma Cannon in one of her early dramatic roles as 'the loony'. (Price murdered Miss Cannon in the same year's 'Holiday Camp, but here they share no scenes).

Great fun.

This proclaims itself as a tale of the 17th century, yet costumes, sets and props belong to the late 18th early 19th as understood in the 1940s. The manners, speech and relationships are early 20th century. The fact that this imposes on the audience describes just how "exciting" this tale is. Unfortunately, the attitude to superstition and witchcraft belongs to an earlier time. The fantasy about how servants were treated is completely laughable. Some careers clearly in a rut. Even the presence of Esma Cannon cannot rescue this tripe.

Set in the 1830s, in elegant period costume, JASSY is a very English tale of love, hate, marriage, adultery, sadistic husbands, scheming wives, whip-wielding fathers, capricious lovers, unrequited love, gambling addicts, snobbery, class antagonism, bigotry, a girls' boarding school, country houses and masters and servants. Oh, and two murders, one by poisoning. And a suicide. It would be nice to add: - and all in the first reel. Well, not quite.

Bernard Knowles, a distinguished cameraman turned moderate director, makes something of a jumble of the first half hour, introducing too many characters and failing to distinguish those with an important part to play. It seems at first, for example, that the splendid Linden Travers as Lady Helmar will be a major protagonist, but she disappears after a couple of scenes, a typical waste of her talents. It's only with Barney's rescue of Jassy that Knowles starts to pull the disparate threads together.

Margaret Lockwood is wonderful as Jassy, the remarkable, psychic, gypsy girl with immaculate English enunciation, though brought up and tutored solely by her father, the resolutely Scottish John Laurie. Coping well enough as the disadvantaged young woman working at the finishing school, she really gets into her stride as the whip-cracking - metaphorically speaking - mistress of the manor house. Looking, as she does, the epitome of glamour, it's no wonder lecherous landowner Helmar - Basil Sydney - finds it difficult to keep his hands off her. Strutting around like an overfed turkey-cock he's entertaining throughout; both he and Lockwood kept getting the giggles in their highly-charged scenes together, setting each other off, causing several re-takes. No doubt some of the corny dialogue didn't help and later, in the court-room scene, Alan Wheatley uses the old acting technique of speaking very slowly and deliberately, to take the curse off a particularly trite sentence. Matching Margaret in the glamour stakes, Patricia Roc 'The Goddess of the Odeons' is excellent as the fickle, opportunistic Dilys, a welcome contrast to her goody-goody Caroline in THE WICKED LADY. The young Dermot Walsh is convincing as one of the few wholly honest characters. All this and Dennis Price, Esma Cannon, then around fifty but playing the much younger Lindy and Ernest Thesiger too.

Thought lost for many years, JASSY was located and restored in the early 1980s, receiving its first British TV transmission in December 1984 on Channel Four. I should love the opportunity to see Jassy and Dilys on the big screen and the continuing lack of a DVD release remains a mystery. Certainly for Margaret Lockwood fans, JASSY is a film to see again. And again...

In 1947 the Labour Government imposed an ad valorem tax on the receipts of American film distributors to stop the flow of sterling out of the country.The Americans boycotted Britain and the government asked Rank to fill the void and he in turn Tasked Sydney Box to churn out dozens of films to show in his cinemas.unfortunately when the films were ready to show the government reached agreement with the Americans who then flooded the market with their films and British films were swamped out of the cinemas.So it is little surprise that this film was the last of the line.It seems to borrow all the best bits from its predecessors eg horse whipping,dissolute behaviour gypsy warnings and second sight.The problem is that there are too many bad bits in between.Curious that Dennis Price is top billed but blows his brains out after 20 minutes.marvellous to look at but overlong and at times dull.

Sprawling costume drama casts Margaret Lockwood as a gypsy girl Jassy who has second sight. She gets a job as maid in the household of a once-great family who have lost everything due to father's (Dennis Price) gambling. But she falls in love with the son (Dermot Walsh) whose ambition it is to regain the family estate from the cruel master (Basil Sydney).

Later, Jassy gets a job at the school for girls where she befriends the daughter of the cruel master (Patricia Roc) and poses as her friend when the girl is expelled from the school. She moves into the estate where she is made housekeeper. But the cruel master has his eye on her.

In another storyline, a brutish blacksmith beats his wife and daughter (Esma Cannon) causing the daughter to lose her voice via a throat injury. She eventually gets a job as maid in the estate where Jassy has gone to live. The "loony" as she is called, becomes the devoted slave to Jassy.

After a riding accident, the cruel master is saved by the loony. He is returned to his estate where Jassy takes full control. But after his death Jassy and the loony are accused of murder.

Lockwood is terrific as Jassy, the gypsy girl who is kinder and truer than all the grand people around her. Cannon turns is a superb performance as the pitiful loony. Dennis Price, Patricia Roc, Dermot Walsh, and Basil Sydney are also very good. Co-stars include Linden Travers, Ernest Thesiger, Cathleen Nesbitt, Susan Shaw, Hugh Pryse, Jean Cadell, Beatrice Varley, Torin Thatcher, and Nora Swinburne.

My comments are brief: Whoever owns the rights to distribute "Jassy" should get their butts in gear and release this colorfully stylish, wistful feature to DVD pronto! Americans (of which I am one) are generally (and shamelessly) content to glut themselves on Hollywood-based product (whether good or not), and continually ignore hallmarks of English cinema. "Jassy" (and "Blanche Fury", another jewel buried away in some vault) are overdue their chance to titillate new audiences and deserve to be released to DVD. Roan? Anchor Bay? Criterion Collection?

HeloooOOOO!...

This story is set in 19th century Britain. Nick Helmer (Basil Sidney) is a real jerk in this period drama. When the story begins, Helmer is gambling and manages to take just about everything from Mr. Hatton. Soon, Hatton has killed himself and his family is no longer living in their grand estate. Hatton's son, Barney, befriends a young woman named Jassy (Margaret Lockwood) and she is indebted to him. And, through the rest of the film she works hard to return the favor...and get revenge on Helmer. Why revenge? Well, it's not just because Helmer ruined Hatton's family but because Helmer has killed her father! What comes next? See the film...and see how Jassy ultimately becomes mistress of the house. There is much more to this complicated tale...but I don't want to tell too much of the story, as it would ruin the suspense.

During this era, Margaret Lockwood many many wonderful films, such as "A Place of Ones Own", "The Wicked Lady" as well as "Bedelia"...so it's no surprise that I enjoyed "Jassy". The story is well acted and never dull....and Lockwood is radiant and up to her usual high standard of acting. Well worth seeing...and with a very strange but worthwhile ending.

Well, slap my breeches and strap my stays, here's an old-fashioned bodice-ripper if ever there was one. A Regency Era melodrama, Margaret Lockwood is the title-character, a poor young girl who through having a gypsy mother apparently has the power of second sight although in practice, it's more like having an instantaneous out-of-body experience.

Jassy gets herself mixed up in the family misfortunes of Dennis Price's Master Barney, whose drunken gambler of a father has just lost the family mansion over a losing hand at cards against the dastardly, boorish Nick Helmar, played with relish by Basil Sydney. Helmar's dilettante daughter Dilys, Patricia Roc, loves a wealthy nobleman's soldiering son, while she herself is loved by Barney, who in turn has turned Jassy's head...

It's all pretty confusing and you can also throw into the head-spinning mix suicide, murder, adultery and domestic violence. Crucial to events is an apparently mute young female servant, taken into Helmar's domestic service by Jassy who has usurped almost all the other household staff as she plays the long game by deliberately allowing the lecherous Helmar to get close to her, or so he thinks.

It all ends up with another murder and a sensational court trial with one surprise succeeding another right up to the final scene. This is a film where you don't so much have to suspend disbelief as hang it by its bootlaces over the highest cliff.

Sorry, but it really is a load of old tosh. The mansion exteriors and interiors are eye-catching enough as are the costumes. My appreciation just about stopped there however with all the ridiculous plotting, fantastical situations and over-earnest acting by all and sundry.

It doesn't want for incident but really there was just far too much going on here pretty much from the beginning, which only served to stretch credibility way beyond breaking point.

It's certainly pretty and colourful to look at, but in the end takes itself way too seriously and is so unintentionally funny at times, you could almost imagine the creators of TV's "Black Adder" taking notes as they watched it, although it might be a cunning plan to actually give this one a miss.