L'homme en gris

The Man in Grey is directed by Leslie Arliss and adapted to screenplay by Margaret Kennedy and Doreen Montgomery from the novel of the same name written by Eleanor Smith. It stars Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger. Music is By Cedric Mallabey and cinematography by Arthur Crabtree.

A forerunner of Gainsborough's Wicked Women movies, The Man in Grey is a delicious slice of British noir pie.

Proudly decked out in period attire, story is ripe with dastards, narcissists, connivers, the selfish and the cruel. Headed up by Mason's Lord Rohan and Lockwood's Hesther Shaw, these people will stop at nothing to get what they want in life. It doesn't matter who is around them, friends and family etc, if they can in any way hinder their respective selfish goals then they will be trampled upon and not a further thought will be given. It all simmers to the boiling point where lives will not just be ruined, but also ended.

The four principal players are great, their respective careers well on the way to leaving behind considerable bodies of work. Arliss (The Night Has Eyes) keeps the story simple in spite of the many character strands and traits jostling for meaty exposure, and photographer Crabtree (Waterloo Road) accentuates the miserablist ambiance with sharp black and white lensing.

The use of black-face on white actors is awfully out dated, as is some of the dialogue, but don't hold these things against The Man in Grey. It's a darn fine bodice botherer, resplendent with characters straight out of noir's dark alleyways. 8/10

Lord Rohan isn't to be blamed for wanting to marry a healthy young woman who will produce a male heir for him, nor is Clarissa to blame for so quickly accepting his proposal, after all her prospects weren't all that great. Nor can I blame Hester for wanting all the things she could never have growing up. No, this is just how it was in those days. I enjoyed Margaret Lockwood's performance the most; it's hard to show remorse in a cold, calculating character and she brings it off well. Calvert, Mason and Granger give her excellent support.

A film which has a lot to answer for, since it started both a trend for Gothic romantic melodramas in British cinema which proved ideal escapist fare for a country at war, as well as starting off various star careers (notably James Mason and Stewart Granger). The former, in particular, cornered the market for a while in brooding anti-heroes whose sadistic streak women seemed to find perversely attractive; incidentally, his part here was smaller than I had anticipated – since the protagonists were really the two ladies who suffered at his hands i.e. Margaret Lockwood and Phyllis Calvert (both of whom would likewise become fixtures in this type of film). Still, this being the prototype, its makers utilized modern-day book-ends – with the conveniently look-alike descendants of the 'good' couple, Calvert and Granger, having better luck coming together – as a safety-pin (not to mention adopting such anachronistic devices as having Calvert's "nigger" servant-boy played by a white child in black-face!). With this in mind, the film is somewhat halting as entertainment when viewed today, but it nevertheless yields pictorial felicities aplenty (courtesy of cinematographer Arthur Crabtree, who would almost immediately graduate to director and dabble in the costume genre for himself), as well as considerable interest throughout. For the record, the latter arrives by way of the occasional powerful scene (Mason and Granger's night-time scuffle in a public garden, Lockwood's come-uppance at the hands of the doting but honor-bound Mason) or humorous incident (a stock-company performance of Shakespeare's "Othello" in which Granger and Lockwood discuss attending aristocrat Calvert, a mutual acquaintance, during the all-important murder scene of Desdemona). Among the film's more notable (and commercially successful) follow-ups, then, were FANNY BY GASLIGHT (1944; which re-united Mason, Calvert and Granger) and THE WICKED LADY (1945; again directed by Arliss and featuring both Lockwood and Mason).

JAMES MASON: THE STAR THEY LOVED TO HATE (TV) (Mike Healey, 1984) **1/2

This adequate, if hardly comprehensive, look at one of the most revered actors of the 20th century (one I greatly admire myself) probably amounted to his last ever interview – since the versatile British thespian would die before the program had even aired! With a career spanning some 50 years, it necessarily skimps over score of titles (even some very good ones) and, given the title, tends towards discussion of his sinister roles (which is actually how he rose to stardom: see my review of THE MAN IN GREY [1943] elsewhere and on whose R2 DVD this documentary was included, albeit in abridged form) rather than being a broad overview of his entire body of work – though, curiously enough, there is no mention at all of Alfred Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) in which the actor did play villainous and is possibly the best film he was ever associated with! Mason, graceful as ever, is quite candid in his recollections – from the peculiar circumstances surrounding his first marriage (actress/writer Pamela Kellino would leave her cinematographer/director husband Roy for him, yet the three would form a lasting if not very successful film-making alliance!), his famous criticism of the British movie industry in a series of articles (what was seen as career suicide at a time when it had basically peaked did lead to a move to Hollywood, though his beginnings there were inauspicious) and when it came to choosing the three pictures he was least fond of, namely LADY POSSESSED (1952; one of the Kellino collaborations), FOREVER DARLING (1956; in which he appeared as an angel alongside Lucille Ball) and KILL! (1971; Romain Gary's bizarre thriller about drug-smuggling). In direct counterpoint, then, the two roles he had singled out over the years as his favorites – ODD MAN OUT (1947) and LOLITA (1962) – are likewise given their due. All in all, a nice record of one of filmdom's most compelling and intelligent presences in rare self-appraisal mode.

The four stars who were the cornerstone of the British Film Industries Gainsborough Pictures, James Mason, Phyllis Calvert, Margaret Lockwood, and Stewart Granger got to star in The Man In Grey. It's a brooding tale of unhappily married wife during the Regency Period, probably after the Napoleonic Wars. There certainly is no mention of the war in the plot.

Two people Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger meet during an auction sale during wartime Great Britain. An estate is being sold off as the last of the male heirs has died. Calvert is the last surviving woman who can't inherit and Granger is the descendant of a man who was involved with one of the ancestors and has an heirloom or two of his own. The camera focuses on a series of mundane antiques and then it dissolves to the Regency period where the story is told and we see the connection of all these objects to the lives of the four stars.

James Mason is in the title role and he's a titled Earl who is haughty and arrogant and revels in being an aristocrat. He has to take a wife to begat an heir, but he wants one who won't get too much in the way of the rakish lifestyle he has no intention of changing. Among Regency aristocrats even he's giving them a bad name, a fact that Raymond Lovell and Nora Swinburne as the Prince Regent and Mrs. Fitzherbert are quick to notice.

Who Mason has chosen for a bride is Phyllis Calvert, a pretty and somewhat naive young thing. Naive so much that she takes as a friend a young woman not of her class when they were both in Martita Hunt's finishing school.

Calvert's ill chosen friend is Margaret Lockwood who gets thrown out of the school for some indiscreet behavior. Years later when Calvert is married to Mason she finds Lockwood now with an acting troupe. Back then being an actor if you weren't William MacCready or Edwin Forrest you were not considered respectable. And note those two examples were men.

Calvert's like Melanie Hamilton who sees only the good in people. But Lockwood is one exponential Scarlett O'Hara. Imagine Scarlett on steroids and you have Lockwood's character. She wants Mason with all that the title and privileges will bring. And his mojo really gets going with her.

And Calvert's mojo gets going for the first time in years with likable gypsy Stewart Granger. This was Granger's first real big part in film and it brought him great critical notices and fulfilled promises of future stardom.

Good as Granger and Calvert are, they pale beside the evil characters that Mason and Lockwood essay. I would have to say Lockwood is the more evil mainly because she hides it so well until the end. Mason's a lot, but he isn't a hypocrite.

One curious piece of casting is young Harry Scott as the young black slave Toby is interesting. It could be the only case of blackface in the British cinema. Since this was the only credit young Mr. Scott had we don't know for sure, but I think this was a white kid in makeup.

The Man In Grey is one of the best films the British cinema turned out during World War II. Like the lead characters who wonder about the connection between them, the British movie-going public went to see this film and put themselves in the places of the leads and wondered about their ancestors and their doings during a postwar period of peace. It's got some of the best acting going by four very skilled players and a good cast in support. And it holds up very well today.

...and director Leslie Arliss. Clarissa Marr (Phyllis Calvert) is a young woman from a prominent family who is married off to Lord Rohan (James Mason). The cruel Lord only wants her to produce an heir, and otherwise leaves her to her own devices, especially once their son is born. Clarissa reconnects with a school acquaintance, Hesther Shaw (Margaret Lockwood), who had created a scandal with the way she had left. Hesther is now an itinerant actress, but Clarissa insists that she move in with her and become her companion. Hesther longs for the wealth and respectability that the Rohan name could give her, so she sets out to manipulate Clarissa's affections for an actor named Rokeby (Stewart Granger) in order to get her own hands on Lord Rohan. Also featuring Martita Hunt, Antony Scott, Helen Haye, Beatrice Varley, Raymond Lovell, and Nora Swinburne.

Released during the height of WW2, this period piece romantic melodrama became a surprise hit. The costumes and settings are finely wrought, particularly during a time of privation such as the war. Three of the lead performers are exceptionally good: Granger as the swaggering bon vivant Rokeby, Lockwood as the amoral scheming Hesther, and James Mason as the mercurial Rohan, who is at times detestable in every way, but rises to the ultimate occasion. Phyllis Calvert isn't bad either, but she's merely called on to be the innocent center around whom these other, showier, characters orbit. I enjoyed this movie quite a bit, especially the great ending crescendo, but there was one odious aspect that keeps my score lower. There's a character named Tobey, a black servant boy played by a white kid for no discernible reason. I'm also not even sure if he's supposed to be a kid or not, since he never changes, always looking like a 12 year old, despite years passing in the story. This character proves to be important to the plot, so he doesn't fade into the background as many insensitive characters do in films of the 30's and 40's. There's also some unfortunate dialogue related to this character. Yeah, it was a different time, but that doesn't make it anymore palatable. This is listed as one of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.