La scandaleuse

Beverly Michaels rolls in on the bus, finds a cheap room and gets a job pushing booze at Evelyn Scott's bar. She keeps her eyes for the easy touch -- creepy tailor Percy Helton is anxious to mend her clothes for her, and Miss Scott's husband, Richard Egan, is tired of dealing with with a wife who's drinking up all the profits, and anxious to trade her in on a blonde whose waist seems to be about half of her two other ample statistics.

Miss Michaels does everything except chew gum and stick it behind her ear to indicate the sort of woman she is, and is fascinating in a trashy way, just smart enough to know she's dumb, and to also know that men are not going to look at her face when she talks. Quite clearly her performance impressed the co-writer and director of this movie, Russell Rouse. They got married a couple of years later, had a couple of kids, and stayed married until his death.

Beverly Michaels, a long drink of ice water, plays Billie Nash, who blows into town on a Greyhound bus, rents space in a cheap boarding house, gets a job as a drinks waitress in a dive, and throws herself at the owner (Richard Egan). There are, however, complications. Egan's wife (Evelyn Scott)helps run the bar but drinks too much; Michael's across-the-hall neighbor (Percy Halton) is a lecherous "runt" with designs, and a habit of spying, on her. When Michaels and Egan plot to sell the bar and abscond to Mexico, the complications get out of hand. "Wicked Woman" is one of those mid-50s grade-Z features that is oddly compelling -- the acting is far better than you'd expect. And there's a grisly fascination in the depiction of the lousy rooms for rent with hotplates and heartache, and in the rough-and-tumble working-class saloons where late-stage alcoholism is a commonplace. The movie hints at darker developments that never really take place yet somehow maintains a curious, crummy integrity. Definitely worth a watch.

WICKED WOMAN is an essential "bad girl" B movie of the 1950's. Beverly Michaels was the first blonde to crack this market that decade and while she never reached the public fame and popularity of the slightly later Cleo Moore and Mamie Van Doren, she's one of the genre's major divas even with her tiny filmography. Michaels is at her bad girl best in WICKED WOMAN as Billie Nash, who blows into town with a mysterious past and no references, ending up in a cheap furnished room boarding house. Billie quickly vamps one of her neighbors Percy Helton into sharing his steaks, "loans", and a reference when she applies for a job at a local bar. Owner Evelyn Scott is dubious but agrees to give the girl a break. That first night Michaels meets Scott's hunky, slightly younger husband Richard Egan and all her gratitude toward Scott is forgotten as she quickly sets her trap to seduce Egan - and persuade him to sell the bar (which was Scott's to begin with) out from under Scott without her knowledge and for them to make a getaway to Mexico with the loot.

The cast is sensational for a B movie. Michaels is superb as the tough blonde who can get even tougher when in a foul mood or cornered. Richard Egan, just before his brief stint as a leading man/star in major motion pictures, is excellent as the good husband who can be had; it's a pleasure to see a sexy B movie bad girl have a hunky, sexy leading man which wasn't often the case. (Egan also appears to be the only person in the cast taller than the 5'9" Michaels, who towers over nearly every other costar.)

Evelyn Scott is terrific as well as a bloozy-floozy Myrna Loy-lookalike and there is a sensational featured turn from Percy Hilton, a highly distinct and recognizable character actor of the era who generally played bits on television as a sheepish but lovable nerd; here Percy is still the sheepish imp but able to be just as sleazy and predatory as those who cross his path. This is a truly fascinating look at the clawing and desperation of very-low income 1950's with dumpy, sparsely furnished rooms and one bathroom per floor in the boarding house.

The ending, as another reviewer noted, is a misfire alas and as someone else mentioned, a plot twist one is expecting never develops. Still, WICKED WOMAN is well worth tracking down (it can currently be seen on youtube) for a rare chance to see Beverly Michaels at her "baddest" best.

You can't judge a book by its cover, unless you don't care to remain oblivious to what the book might contain. The same holds true for low-budget films like Wicked Woman. Yes, a thread of superficiality runs through it, but if we judge this film as "trashy" as one reviewer here did, we risk comparing it unfairly with other films that were simply not in the same league. I prefer to judge this film based on what it actually gives us, not what it could give us. Such films don't measure up to the five-star flicks of Film Noir but they supply the mortar around which the bricks are laid. This film served/serves a purpose with its glimpse of seedy boarding room in small town America, showing us the transiency of the period. Once upon a time I, too, chose to "Go Greyhound" as a means to my adventurous ends, and I appreciated the tone established when Billie Nash she steps off that smokey bus that brought to this ubiquitous town from who knows where...and then again at the end when it takes her away again, perhaps to yet another thread-bare town?

Saw this 7/28/17 on a watchable version via YouTube. Not bad at all, does not try to push the budgetary limits. Rouse has a good script, and he keeps it moving. The leads, Beverly Michaels (a stick-limbed Mamie Van Doren), Richard Egan, Evelyn Scott, and Percy Helton all perform well. Scott, appearing as a boozy version of Rosemary DeCamp, gives a layered, believable performance as the wife of the Egan character. A larger than usual role for the reliably arachnoid Helton. The film hints, mercifully without showing, that Michaels yields to his sexual advances, a unique, unsettling milestone in a long career deserving of a Motion Picture Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement as a Homunculus. OK – maybe "Wicked Woman" does not strictly follow some "noir" rule book." But who cares about categories, other than just "movie"? And this is a pretty good one for the money! Seventy-seven minutes, and hard to find a second wasted.