The woman without a heart (1945)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The woman without a heart |
| Original title | The wicked lady |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1945 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Leslie Arliss |
| script | Doreen Montgomery |
| production | RJ Minney |
| music | Hans May |
| camera | Jack Cox |
| cut | Terence Fisher |
| occupation | |
| |
The Woman Without a Heart is a 1945 British costume film melodrama directed by Leslie Arliss, starring Margaret Lockwood and James Mason as her beau. The story is based on the novel The Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton (1945) by Magdalen King-Hall and is considered the most successful production by Gainsborough Pictures, which specializes in plush film fabrics, and the most successful British film of 1946
action
The eponymous “wicked lady”, the “woman without a heart”, is called Barbara Worth and is a beautiful brunette with green eyes. She is invited by her best friend Caroline to attend her wedding to the wealthy landowner and local magistrate, Sir Ralph Skelton. Barbara has no scruples and knows neither friend nor foe. She uses all her feminine charms to get the future groom under her spell. Caroline is the exact opposite of her. When she first realizes that Ralph is falling for Barbara skin and hair, she steps aside in an act of great altruism and leaves the field to the scheming rival. Barbara even has the cheek and asks Caroline to be her bridesmaid. At the wedding reception, Barbara meets the ascetic-looking Kit Locksby. It's love at first sight for both young people, but it's too late. Barbara can no longer withdraw from the upcoming wedding.
The married life in the country without the excitement of the big city doesn't get the new Lady Skelton, who is always on the hunt for the latest thrill, at all: she is bored to death. A visit to her unpopular sister-in-law Lady Henrietta Kingsclere and her husband does not bring the longed-for change. During a game of cards, Henrietta also takes from Barbara's jewels, including her late mother's ruby brooch. When the name of the highwayman, Captain Jerry Jackson, is mentioned by chance, Barbara comes up with an idea. Masked as Jackson, Barbara ambushes Henrietta's carriage and takes back her playful jewelry plus the Henriettas. Barbara quickly finds a taste for this kind of income and wants to imitate the real Jackson from now on. It happens as it has to: Without knowing each other, Barbara and the real mugger attack the same carriage. Jackson is later all the more amazed that a woman imitates him, and they both share the booty. Barbara and Captain Jackson become lovers and partners in crime. She strongly warns him never to be unfaithful to her.
Barbara learns of a planned gold transport and does not want to miss this "big fish". Jackson, however, is against this idea, as the carriage is presumably more secure than usual. Barbara can persuade Jackson and so the two also commit this robbery. However, the robbery did not go smoothly and they were followed by Ned Cotterill, one of the security guards. Barbara shoots his horse, but kills the pursuer. From now on Barbara is completely unscrupulous. The elderly house servant Hogarth soon discovers Barbara's double life. The religious Hogarth tries desperately to persuade his mistress to repent, but Barbara only pretends that she regrets her actions. But then she tries to poison him first, and finally she suffocates the old man. While Hogarth had one eye on Lady Skelton, the heartless woman was doomed to put a stop to her activities at Captain Jackson's side. But now she returns to him and both forays. She visits him and has to watch him have fun in bed with another woman. Out of sheer revenge, Barbara betrays her criminal lover to her husband, whereupon Captain Jerry is caught and sentenced to death by hanging. To the execution, the malicious Barbara, accompanied by Caroline, drives with the carriage, not least because she fears that Jackson might name Barbara's name as his accomplice as the last act on the scaffold. When Jerry recognizes his companion, he knows that only she can have betrayed him. He makes a sibylline comment, which leads to a tumult in the area, from which the two women are rescued by the courageous use of Kit. Kit has since got engaged to Caroline, although the two do not love each other.
The tumult enables Jackson's cronies to cut off their leader from the hangman's rope while still alive. Now Barbara must fear for her life because of her betrayal. She holed up on her husband's estate, but Jackson infiltrated Skelton's country estate to strangle Barbara. During the fight, he changed his mind and offended the faithless villain. Fearing what he might do next, she asks Kit, the only man she has ever loved, to get her out of England to start a new life with her. Kit begins to waver for a moment, but then remembers his obligation as a fiancé to Carolines. Since this last attempt at seduction was of no use to Barbara, she takes a pistol and, masked, goes to her husband Sir Ralph Skelton's carriage. Suddenly the rapist Jerry Jackson reappears. He claims his share of Barbara's next raid, which is obviously supposed to be her own husband. When Jackson realizes that Barbara is planning nothing less than a husband's murder, the situation becomes too precarious for him and the robber captain wants to run away. Since Barbara does not want to rely on his silence, she shoots Jackson without batting an eyelid. When the carriage with Caroline, Ralph and Kit arrives, she kidnaps them and tries to shoot her husband. Kit shoots first, however, seriously injuring Barbara. Once again the wicked lady escapes. She returns to her husband's house, where Caroline finds her. Now she finally learns the whole truth about the mugger, her former best friend. Caroline sends Kit to her so that he can say goodbye to her. Barbara confesses to him all her crimes and asks not to leave her alone to die. Kit leaves the room in disgust. Caroline and widower Ralph, who were once separated by Barbara's intrigue and yet never lost their love for each other, can now start a new attempt for a future together.
Production notes
The Woman Without a Heart was filmed in the Gainsbourough Studios and Blickling Hall (exterior shots) from March 1945 and premiered on November 15, 1945. The German premiere took place in October 1946.
John Bryan designed the film set, Elizabeth Haffenden provided the costumes. Jack Asher was a simple cameraman. Louis Levy took over the musical direction.
After The Lord in Gray (1943), Lockwood and Mason played a villainous couple again, whose unscrupulousness harmonizes perfectly with each other.
useful information
In the second half of the Second World War, under the direction of head of production Maurice Ostrer, the producing film company Gainsborough Pictures , starting with The Lord in Gray , developed into the most important company when it came to producing opulent costume dramas and tearful love tugs. Almost all of Gainsborough's films in the 1940s, almost all of which were released on the German market immediately after the end of the war, developed - “although critics wrote of them with contempt”, as Jörg Helbig recalled - to big box office magnets in Europe, occasionally also on the US market and also produced numerous film stars, above all Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Patricia Roc, Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger . Gainsborough's greatest successes include Gaslight and Shadow , Madonna of the Seven Moons , Cornwall Rhapsody , The Woman Without a Heart, Three Marriages , Dangerous Journey , Paganini and, finally, Gypsy Blood .
In 1982, The Wicked Lady made a remake that was released in Germany under the title Die Wicked Lady . The Lockwood role was played by Faye Dunaway , the Mason part by Alan Bates .
Reviews
The lexicon of international films judges: "An absurd costume robber pistol, weakly constructed, staged and played."
The Movie & Video Guide found the film “not convincing”.
Halliwell's Film Guide recalled that the film had been extremely successful at the time, "because of its atmosphere and dark sin." Formally, however, Halliwell could not gain anything from the film; he was "in a dramatic way bombastic and astonishingly badly played and staged".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Short message in: The Courier-Mail of December 20, 1946
- ^ Jörg Helbig: History of British Film. Verlag KB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1999. p. 82
- ↑ The woman without a heart. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2020 .
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1456
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 1115
Web links
- The woman without a heart in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Wicked Lady on screenonline.org