La vividora

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

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.

Following the success of All About Eve, there were many knock-offs to give other actresses their day in the sun. "I could have been Eve Harrington!" they all cry. If you want to see Arlene Dahl being "as wicked as they come," then check out the aptly titled drama.

Beautiful, and with a sensational figure, Arlene finds out early on that when men are attracted to her, they lose their good judgment. They'll do anything for her, and she learns to take advantage. Starting with her stepfather and his friends when she's young, Arlene gets a warped view of love and romantic relationships. They're nothing but a way for a woman to get ahead, she believes. And she wants to go straight to the top. Along the way, she steps on and over Herbert Marshall, Philip Carey, and a string of other foolish men.

The witty screenplay has lines that will make you chuckle even though the situation is tense. "How much do you love my husband?" Faith Brook asks Arlene, while extracting her checkbook from her purse. Poor Philip Carey falls in love with Arlene and thinks she could be different if she learns to love in return. When she repeatedly disappoints him, he quips, "You could try the want-ads. Wanted: rich husband, preferably someone else's." If you're an Arlene Dahl fan, don't miss this dramatic thriller. It's spicy and fun.

Kiddy warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, since there's a rape scene, I wouldn't let my kids watch this movie.

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,

Fab 50s fashions are the best thing this film has to offer with its story of a woman who works at some shirtwaist dress company who manipulates her way out of the "hoodlum" infested neighborhood in NY she comes from, claiming to be from tonier Boston! Sadly it seems they ran out of a costume budget halfway through, when, in spite of having hooked her biggest fish yet, she starts wearing outfits over again (such as a hideous white stole) - outfits less stylish, strangely, now that she lives in Paris!

The locations/sets are to die for. As is Arlene Dahl - gorgeous - but I kind of find her even more remarkable later in her life on the game show circuit. That's some long lasting glamour she's got! Besides as a young gal she looked too much like Janet Leigh. She married some hotties in her time and offsprang some too. Wow. Lex Barker, Lorenzo Lamas. Mmmm mmm! Not too shabby, tabby!

The film was introduced by a historian reading excerpts from a transcript of a suit brought by AD against the studio over a composite photo made for publicity purposes for which she maintained she never posed (and it certainly isn't in the film) in which someone kisses her nude shoulder. She insisted it was a "wanton" image, while maintaining she was "no prude". The court however found the image "delicate and artistic" or some such... she lost the case. All the same she says this is one of her favorite vehiculars. Well, I haven't seen any of her others but either they were pretty bad or her taste in hotties is better than her taste in pictures!

Anyway, the mitigating finale of the film is kind of a disappointment, as is the general low level of her wickedness throughout. Sure, she's "cheap and horrible" as Mildred Pierce said of Veda, but the whole story is told in more amusing pointed and flat out woman hatingly in some of those Hollywood precode films like "Babyface" with Babs Stanwyck (who never married any hotties). "Wicked" pulling its punches didn't really add much to it. Girl, if this is "wicked as they come" then I guess there are no whores, only (violated and somewhat narcissistic) madonnas!