Wicked Wife

This is a nifty little movie that surprised me, having come to it without great expectations. It centers about a racehorse owner and his playgirl type wife who doesn't even like horses. The Grand National for those that don't know is probably the worlds most famous steeplechase type race which is held every year at Aintree near Liverpool.Its a very demanding race bringing great kudos to the winner. The marriage of the principals and the wife storms off to a party on Grand National night and what develops from then on is a more than decent thriller with a couple of slick twists. It has a rather unexpected ending for its time, and is well worth watching if you get the chance.

I loved this B picture, black & white from 1953 and very English of it's time. It takes place in Liverpool and involves a race horse owner (the always underrated Nigel Patrick) whose horse wins the Grand National. His blowsey but beautiful wife (Moira Lister) isn't interested in him, his lifestyle of managing horses or anything which has given them the grand lifestyle they have, other than indulging in the rewards that the money available gives her, to party all night and get drunk constantly and go around with other men. One night she comes home and a row ensues leading to a fight. She grabs a knife, and that's all we see until the following morning. The rest of the film follows the investigation of her disappearance, involving her sister, a police officer played by the excellent Michael Hordern, and various other friends. Eventually, Nigel Patrick is rumbled, he confesses to a family friend (a woman who seems to like him more than she should) and it is clear to us the audience that his number is up. I was expecting him to be led away to justice and the film to end. Just keep watching, I was totally fooled.

It's a big day for racing stables owner Nigel Patrick. His horse wins the Grand National, and his mare foals. Of course, his bored wife, Moira Lister, leaves him, and then returns to quarrel with him, and then her body is found next morning in a car in Liverpool, but these things tend to balance out. Of course, a very suspicious and ambitious Police Inspector Michael Hornden come by to quiz everyone, and it's clear enough what he thinks has happened. It's especially clear to the audience when Patrick insists Miss Lister never returned.

Even with that, there are a few surprises in this movie. It's been opened up from a stage play, and a good job of it has been done. Even so, the incredibly posh names, like Colin Gordon's upper-class twit "Babs Darling" and Patrick's sympathetic sister-in-law, "Pinkie Collins", portrayed by Betty Ann Davies, clutter the screen. With Noel Purcell and Gibbs McLaughlin.

Nigel Patrick stars with Moira Lister in The Wicked Wife from 1953.

Patrick plays Gerald Coates, a wealthy horse breeder whose horse wins the Grand National. His wife Babs (Lister) is an unhappy drunk. Her driver's license has been revoked, but after a row with a drunken friend in Liverpool, she drives home in bad weather. Her husband is furious. They quarrel; she falls and dies.

Her body is found in the car in Liverpool. The police see that the car drove 44 miles - meaning to them that she drove 22 miles home from Liverpool. Gerald denies she ever returned.

Good movie as Gerald tries to have savior faire in the face of evidence - her shoes, her compact from her evening bag found in the couch, and, most devastating, a train ticket from the husband's macintosh pocket showing he returned from Liverpool that night despite saying he was home.

Nice twist at the end. Entertaining.

An enjoyably twisty thriller set in the usual country mansion in which the event described in most plot synopses doesn't even happen on camera, loyalties and assumptions constantly shift and detective Michael Hordern is thwarted at every turn in his attempts to nail Nigel Patrick.

Among the supporting cast Gibb McLaughlin is given more to do than we're accustomed to; and Betty Ann Davies is startlingly made a platinum blonde the better to resemble Moira Lister's sister.