Keiner ging an ihr vorbei

This is an amazing film for its very dense direction bringing the best out of a rather cheap story and some totally unknown B-actors, Herbert Marshall being the only film star among them and playing the shabbiest role. Arlene Dahl in the lead reminds very much of Kim Novak in films like "Vertigo" , the same kind of superior beauty with something wrong about her, while Michael Goodliffe, somewhat reminding of Trevor Howard, stands for the passion that turns on the drama. Philip Carey as the male lead succeeds in makíng a very complicated part and character quite convincing and likeable, the one who saves some human dignity in a pit of human pitfalls.

It's as a psychological drama that the film is highly interesting, modern and timeless. Almost everyone sees that there is something wrong about Kathy in her cruel disdain of men while at the same time everyone must fall for her, but no one can understand what the trouble is, least of all herself, or if she does, she keeps a splendid poker face and never loses her control, although, as it proves, she is constantly walking on a razor's edge by an abyss. There are also parallels to Polanski's "Repulsion", it's a related case, but here you get the full story, although not until the end. You are left hanging in the end with everything lost but hope, which is no more than a faint light that no one can know if it will survive.

Ken Hughes later made other excellent films, especially "The Trials of Oscar Wilde", and this is no less impressing in its extremely smooth psychological direction where nothing is out of the context, like a perfect jig-saw puzzle with no pieces missing and all fitting perfectly.

Arlene Dahl does a nice turn as a cold, manipulative woman, who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Along the way she goes a bit off the deep end of the morality scale, and inflicts some unnecessary punishment on some over-optimistic suitors. The director, who was also the writer, Harris, does a pretty good job of story-telling and framing most of the scenes. The emotional battles we see raging on the screen are ones that many viewers will have experieinced at one time or another. This character could have been formulated, however, without the last-minute copout rationalization given by the story line. Despite thiis one convenient mechanism, the film still holds up pretty well as a solid soap.

This priceless British copy of an American crime film comes to you courtesy of rising young director Ken Hughes with a tongue-in-cheek tone set from the outset by shots of fifties London accompanied by a noisy jazz score provided by Malcolm Arnold, with noirish photography by Basil Emmott.

Set in the days when travel by plane was considered the high of glamour, the presence of Sid James as Arlene Dahl's stepfather serves as a visual reminder of Miss Dahl's humble beginnings (early on she's seen wielding a broken bottle) before she rises in the world while wreaking havoc on all the men in the cast,

Arlene Dahl is "Wicked as They Come" in this 1956 film also starring Philip Carey. Soap fans may know Carey as Asa Buchanan in "One Life to Live," the soap opera from which the 82-year-old actor recently retired, having been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006. In 1956, he was as hunky as they get. Herbert Marshall also stars.

A Hollywood insider once told me that the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in person - and he had seen them all - was Arlene Dahl. So she's a great choice to play a man-hating, gold-digging femme fatale in this British drama. Her character, Kathy, suffered some sort of trauma which has caused her to turn on men. To her, they're just steppingstones to big bucks. One man (Carey) sees through her and acts as her conscience throughout the film.

If this film had been a lot worse or a lot better, it could today be a camp classic. Unfortunately it falls in between. Kathy pulls some outrageous stunts, but the script doesn't have enough bite to it. Not only that, it's entirely predictable. Case in point is Kathy's romance with her boss, Stephen (Herbert Marshall). He agrees to leave his wife for her. Later that evening, Kathy realizes that Stephen's wife is no less than the daughter of the owner of the company. Leaving her will certainly put Stephen out of a job. When Stephen's wife confronts Kathy in the ladies' room, you had to know she'd be calling Kathy "Stepmommy" pretty soon, now that Kathy knows the score and the players. That's hardly my favorite Kathy moment - the best is when she becomes engaged and practically buys out a store on the guy's charge account, then pawns everything and blows town. That took guts.

Dahl, despite her beauty, was never really given a chance to show what she could do in Hollywood acting-wise, and here, she's good. Had she been around at the height of Hollywood's golden age, she perhaps would have had more opportunities. As a post-war actress with the studios on the verge of breaking up, she really didn't, and while another redhead, Rhonda Fleming, had a slightly better career, neither achieved the stardom they might have.

Recommended for beautiful Arlene, handsome Phil, a pretty old Herbert Marshall and some beautiful fashions.

Wicked as They Come is directed by Ken Hughes who also co-writes the screenplay with Sigmund Miller and Robert Westerby. It stars Arlene Dahl, Philip Carey, Herbert Marshall, Michael Goodlife and Ralph Truman. Music is by Malcolm Arnold and cinematography by Basil Emmott.

Adapted from the Bill S. Ballinger novel, story has Dahl as a poor but beautiful girl who realises that her sexuality will get her all the finer things in life - at whatever cost.

Efficient little British Noirer that makes up for a lack of originality with some strong psychological smarts.

We are all guilty of it, film fans and critics that is, in how we often compare a film recently viewed with something of a similar ilk that is far better. One such case is Wicked as They Come, a piece coming late in the original film noir cycle that sticks a major league femme fatale out there front and centre. Dahl's Kathy Allen (nee Allenbourg) is hot to trot, a viper of the highest order, her beauty and sexuality is stunning, thus men line up to eat out of her hands. Where once was sane and astute business men, now sit lap dogs soon ready to fall into the vipers nest.

If that sounds familiar then of course it is, even from the pre code days there were film makers exploring the sex as a weapon angle, toying with bad girl persona's as a course of cinematic titillation. Ken Hughes knows his draw card is Dahl, who even in black and white is heart achingly gorgeous, a smouldering vixen to literally die for. The story trajectory is nothing new, Kathy tramples on every man she can to feather her own nest, but sooner or later things have to come to a head, where the reason for the distorted psyche will out and the crossroads of life ominously appears at film's closure.

Better films out there that deal with the same themes? Yes, absolutely. That doesn't mean this should be readily dismissed as a viable option to those with an interest in such femme fatale dalliances. Dahl is super, her male co-stars equally so, and Hughes steers it safely to a perfectly ambiguous finale. Welcome to noirville, men enter at your own risk. 7/10