Wicked as They Come

Wicked as they come is the suggestive title of this 1956 British drama, with Arlene Dahl as the protagonist. It is the story of a beautiful woman, who reveals symptoms of misandry from an early age, but ruthlessly uses men as means of social and financial advancement.

The film portrays this life path, with a refusal of emotional involvement, which accumulates enemies and seems destined for a tragic end.

It's an interesting, original, well-paced film, a little melodramatic for some people's tastes, but one that can be enjoyed until the end, as a result of the plot's ongoing developments.

With Philip Carey, Michael Goodliffe and veteran Herbert Marshall, among the actors who embody the suitors passed over by the Machiavellian Kathy.

Arlene Dahl was a beautiful woman. She doubtless still is. She had a cold look, which works for this movie. She plays a gold-digger with little heart. The character seems to be icy physically, too: She likes what men can get her but romance and sex do not appear to be among her interests.

Herbert Marshall, for decades a leading man, ends up in this too. He plays one of the men she uses.

There are similarities between this and "Baby Face" with Barbara Stanwyck. That movie packs a real wallop, though. This one is chic but tepid.

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,

This film almost gets to the finish line but for it's final minute. The end lacks a master touch but gets to that point with a creative plot. The Camera work is among the very best and drives the story almost flawlessly.

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.