Maddyclassicfilms The Man In Grey is directed by Leslie Arliss,based on the popular novel by Eleanor Smith and stars Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Stewart Granger, Phyllis Calvert and Martita Hunt.It's also one of the most memorable costume melodramas Gainsborough Studios ever made.Margeret Lockwood again plays a similar woman to Barbara in The Wicked Lady, with the same low regard for other peoples feelings and lives.Beginning during the Second World War at an auction of heirlooms from the notorious Rohan family we then flash back to Regency era England.The beautiful and angry Hester Shaw(Margeret Lockwood) becomes a pupil at a private school for young ladies run by the comical Miss Patchett(Martita Hunt).Hester is an instant outcast to all except one of the pupils,the kindly Clarissa Marr(Phyllis Calvert).The two become best friends but Hetser also resents Clarissa because she thinks her friendship is a form of charity.A gypsy woman visits the school and reads Clarissa's palm,she predicts a marriage to a rich man but is afraid of Hester and refuses to tell her fortune.Hester runs away and becomes a stage actress,years later she meets up with Clarissa again.Clarissa is unhappily married to the wealthy,but cold and indifferent Lord Rohan(James Mason).Hester sets her sights on him and they begin an affair.Hester introduces Clarissa to her friend the dashing and kind hearted rogue Peter Rokeby(Stewart Granger).The two begin a close friendship and tender love affair.James is suitably slimy and harsh as the crazed Lord Rohan and Stewart oozes sex appeal out of every scene he's in.Margaret is at her best in these sorts of roles, playing a tough independent woman going against society. Ideal viewing for a rainy day.

Jem Odewahn The first official "Gainsborough Gothic" bodice-ripper was a smash hit for WW2 weary audiences in Britain, making instant stars out of James Mason, Stewart Granger, Phyllis Calvert and Margaret Lockwood. Audiences went back to the cinema time and time again to see the diabolical exploits of the nasty and sexy Mason, the cruel and calculating Lockwood and the doomed lovers Granger and Mason. The Regency-era setting is cleverly contained in a flashback from a WW2 black-out. Lovely, fair-headed and popular Clarissa Richmond (Calvert) befriends a poor pupil at her school, the raven-haired and almost humourless Hesther(Lockwood). Big mistake! In the years to come Clarissa has married the dastardly Lord Rohan (Mason), who only wants her as a broodmare. Things are looking up when she comes across Hesther again, and meets the dashing Rokeby (Granger). But then Hesther has her eye on Lord Rohan...So, how does this melodrama with a rather hokey plot (though it's very much "Vanity Fair" spun-off) hold up today? Not bad, not bad at all, if you can forgive the creakiness and chunks of awful dialogue. The four stars all create such believable persona's that they were all pretty much typecast forever. Interesting that Lockwood only really played three "wicked" women in her career, but she's forever immortalised by this and her subsequent "The Wicked Lady". While Mason, Granger and Lockwood stick out firm in the memory, Calvert is really the glue that holds it all together though. Her Clarissa is almost so sugary to induce diabetes, but Calvert makes her believable and sympathetic.

gsygsy This is a tedious movie. The real villains are the clunky adaptation (it's embarrassingly easy to tell that the source material was a novel) and witless screenplay.On the credit side, considering the budget was tight due to wartime austerity, the look of the film isn't at all bad. And the performances are, by and large, OK, except for Phyllis Calvert, who is terrific - a miracle considering the potential for winsomeness, a pit into which she most definitely does not fall. Ms Calvert, with a lot less to go on, is as accomplished as Olivia de Havilland in Gone With The Wind.The one absolutely unbearable aspect of The Man in Grey is the dreadfully conceived depiction of a black serving boy. No matter that he's meant to be a sympathetic character. Played badly by a white boy in black-face make-up, it is impossible to by-pass this example of condescending racism.Grim.

gazaman The Man in Grey was the first and probably the most successful of the Gainsborough melodramas. The lavish regency tale centres around the aristocratic Clarissa Richmond (Phyllis Calvert) who dutifully enters into an loveless arranged marriage with the cold hearted Lord Rohan (James Mason)- the Man in Grey of the title.Love and intrigue are to enter Clarissa's life when a chance meeting with an old school friend, the scheming Hester (Margaret Lockwood), leads her to the dashing Rokeby (Stewart Granger).The story reaches its dramatic conclusion through twists and turns of plot and excellent performances from who can be called the four cornerstones of the war time British cinema - Stewart Granger, James Mason, Phyllis Calvert and Margaret Lockwood.The Man in Grey is my personal favorite of all the Gainsborough films, it is high drama and escapism. The Man in Grey is definitely worth another look.