WICKED AS THEY COME
UK, 1956, 94 minutes, Black and white.
Arlene Dahl, Philip Carey, Herbert Marshall, Michael Goodliffe, Ralph Truman, Sidney James, David Kossoff, Faith Brook, Patrick Allen.
Direct by Ken Hughes.
Wicked as they Come has a touch of the potboiler title.
This is a film, written and directed by Ken Hughes (many smaller films but a peak in the late 60s with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Cromwell). This is a British production, filmed in the UK, the type of small film made in England at the time, often with American actors, as is the case here with Arlene Dahl and Philip Carey.
However, the opening is in the US, a close with factory, a competition, Cathy (Arlene Dahl) not only entering but being seductive with the father and son in charge of the Style Competition. It is odd to see Sid James and David Koss off as American characters.
While Cathy has started poor and later revelation that she was sexually attacked when a teenager, she has another self-confidence to manipulate men, winning the competition, going to England, modifying her name, enjoying the fashions, wealthy hotels and the beginning of encounters with men, seductive manner and charm, exploiting them, dumping them. The man who escapes something of her wiles is an advertising man played by Philip Carey who comes into her life at various stages, understands her, loves her, but is used by her.
The list of men that she ruins includes Michael Goodlett as a photographer, Herbert Marshall as an executive who has an affair with her but cannot leave his wife, his father-in-law who is a rich businessman who marries her.
Arlene Dahl was considered one of the beauties of Hollywood and this is very much a reality in this film, her effect on the male audience probably as seductive as it was on the men in her life.
Arlene Dahl then did another film in the UK, Fortune is a Woman/She Played with Fire.
1. Drama about an American gold-digger in England? 1950s style?
2. The opening with the American setting (for a British film to be successful in the US)? The factory, Holmes, cards, television? Restaurants? The printers? The preparation for the British sequences?
3. Britain, London, Caps OAC, the swanky hotel, the photography suite, business school, secretarial work, travel, Paris? The courts in prison? The musical score?
4. The title, Arlene Dahl in the central role? Her origins, the later revelation of the thugs attacking her? Her resistance to men? Her plans, goals, cold, lack of scruple? And yet her glamour – and the impact for the male audience, accepting her as did the male characters?
5. The US, the factory, style, the competition, the television show? Cathy at home, her stepfather and is attitudes? His friends coming on to her? The son of the publisher, asking for dates? Are going to the printing press, talking with the publisher, charming him, going out to dinner, the father and son organising her win? Her turning the tables on them? Using them?
6. Change of name, going to England, the encounter with Tim, his liking her, seen through her, observing her and her wiles? With the tycoon – and his wife and family at the airport?
7. At the hotel, the encounter with Buckham, the mixed up keys, going to dinner with him, his infatuation, the photo shoot? The proposal, away for a week, her buying everything on his account, vanishing? His anger, owing to the bank, the fight, arrest, six months prison? His later vengeance, prowling, frightening Cathy? Tim coming to see him, putting out the facts, his six months versus her execution? His going to the police – offscreen?
8. Tim, his advice, going to secretarial school, succeeding? The application for the job? The encounter with Stephen Collins? His phoning for the documents, her bringing them, the set up with the bed, his infatuation with her? The affair? Going to Paris, the encounter with his wife? Her attempt to buy Cathy of? The encounter with her father, companionship, marriage? Her achieving everything? Yet unhappy? The prowler, the gun, shooting her husband?
9. Tim, his character, advertising, friendship, understanding Cathy, the relationship, Stephen Collins finding them, firing him? Is seeing her in Paris? Her relationship with the businessman? His coming to her support after the case?
10. The men in her life, there infatuation with her, affairs, marriage?
11. The arrest, the investigation? The testimony? The court? Guilty? Tim and his persuading Buckham to go to the police, are being charged with manslaughter, or accepting this is just?
12. A life, from poverty to riches, what she wanted, what she achieved, what she felt? The possibility of a future with Tim – or not?
