HATTER'S CASTLE

James Mason

HATTER'S CASTLE (aka A, J. Cronin's Hatter's Castle/1942). Director: Lance Comfort.

James Brodie (Robert Newton of Obsession) owns a hat shop in a small British township and not only has pretensions but an alleged connection to the peerage. The huge house he has built and can hardly afford to keep is called "Hatter's Castle" by the townspeople. Brodie takes out his anger on his dying wife (Beatrice Varley) and pretty daughter, Mary (Deborah Kerr of The Night of the Iguana), but reserves his only affection for his young son, Angus (Tony Bateman), on whom he pins his hopes. The hypocritical Brodie turns his daughter out when she becomes pregnant by his slimy clerk, Dennis (Emlyn Williams), but keeps a mistress, Nancy (Enid Stamp-Taylor), in town, whom he later hires as his housekeeper! This is Newton's picture -- James Mason [Caught] has a relatively small role as a doctor who ministers to Mrs. Brodie and falls in love with Mary despite everything that happens. Mason is excellent, as is everyone else in the cast, with Newton giving an especially strong and flavorful performance (although one could argue that at times Newton threatens to turn into a caricature of a palm-rubbing silent movie villain  -- and the movie certainly has elements of silent melodrama). Based on a novel by A. J. Cronin, Hatter's Castle is an absorbing film full of dramatic and moving incident; it moves fast and plays very well.

Verdict: Superior British melodrama with a gripping Newton, lovely Kerr and stalwart Mason. ***.

THE WICKED LADY

Lock Up Your Valuables: Margaret Lockwood

THE WICKED LADY (1945). Director: Leslie Arliss.

"How can I fail to love a man as rich as he is?" --  Barbara Worth.

Sir Ralph Skelton (Griffith Jones) is engaged to lovely Caroline (Patricia Roc), when her cousin, Barbara (Margaret Lockwood), shows up and manages to steal Ralph away from her. After the marriage the somewhat masochistic Caroline stays on to help run the estate. Barbara becomes a little careless and in a card game loses an heirloom, a beautiful necklace that belonged to her mother, to the unctuous Henrietta (Enid Stamp-Taylor). Hearing of a notorious highwayman who robs coaches, Barbara decides to emulate him to get the heirloom back and for excitement continues her career as  a masked desperado. The Wicked Lady seems to take a weird turn at this point, but that's when things get really interesting, with Barbara falling in love with the highwayman, Captain Jerry Jackson (James Mason) even as her husband, Ralph, pursues the both of them without knowing her true identity. The performances from the entire cast, including Felix Aylmer [Never Take Candy from a Stranger] as the pious servant, Hogarth, are excellent; the movie has a fast pace; and the situations that develop are suspenseful and fascinating, Lockwood [Hungry Hill] and Mason [Child's Play] make a great team -- the two appeared together in the terrible A Place of One's Own -- and Michael Rennie delivers in a small but significant role as another man who falls in love with Barbara.

Verdict: Dark and twisted romantic melodrama with excellent performances. ***1/2,