Wicked as They Come

Plot synopsis:
Poor girl from the slums Katherine Allenbourg trades on her looks. She enters a beauty contest, then charms the elderly gentleman running it, Sam Lewis, into fixing it so she will win first prize, a trip to Europe. She promptly abandons Sam.
Changing her name to Kathy Allen, she is attracted to Tim O'Bannion, a passenger on the plane to London who works for an ad agency. But she's determined to land someone wealthier and photographer Larry Buckham fills the bill. Invited to use his charge account at a department store for a wedding dress, Kathy makes many purchases, pawns the merchandise and leaves Larry without a word.
She gets a job at Tim's advertising firm and seduces the married Stephen Collins, who runs it. Tim arouses more passion in her, but Kathy's strictly out for herself. She demands Collins divorce his wife Virginia, whose father John Dowling owns the agency. Virginia tries to pay her off, but Kathy requests a transfer to the agency's Paris headquarters, where she immediately uses her wiles to get Dowling to marry her.
Anonymous threats begin by mail and phone. Someone in the shadows begins stalking her. Kathy picks up a gun and shoots, killing her husband instead. No one believes her tale of a prowler and Kathy is tried, convicted and sentenced to die.
Tim realizes that it is Larry who is behind all this. He reveals an explanation for Kathy's cruel treatment of men, the fact that she was brutally assaulted as a girl. Larry has a change of heart and confesses to stalking her. Kathy's prison sentence is reduced, and she hopes Tim will give her another chance once she gets out.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
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.
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.
Case in point is Kathy's romance with her boss, Stephen (Herbert Marshall).
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.
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..
Arlene Dahl as wicked femme fatale in one of her better roles....
The opening scenes of this grim melodrama are reminiscent of the Barbara Stanwyck oldie, BABY FACE, about a girl's rise up the ladder of success by stepping on the men in her life as she seduces her way to the top.
It's an old tale, done before in many films, and it gets fairly good treatment here.ARLENE DAHL is convincing enough as the femme fatale every man is a sucker for, scheming her way to the top by doing whatever it is she can to pull the strings and push the right buttons.
PHILIP CAREY is the one man who sees through all her manipulative ways, acting more or less as the woman's conscience by reminding her until the end of the story of the sins she commits.Seems that she was badly abused in her youth in a gang rape situation and has never been able to love men since.
Dahl plays the role in a gutsy way and it's probably one of her best acting jobs in an offbeat dramatic role.Made at Columbia, in England, after she left MGM, it demonstrates that she has a range that was never tapped by her home studio.
It stars Arlene Dahl, Philip Carey, Herbert Marshall, Michael Goodlife and Ralph Truman.
Ballinger novel, story has Dahl as a poor but beautiful girl who realises that her sexuality will get her all the finer things in life - at whatever cost.Efficient little British Noirer that makes up for a lack of originality with some strong psychological smarts.We are all guilty of it, film fans and critics that is, in how we often compare a film recently viewed with something of a similar ilk that is far better.
One such case is Wicked as They Come, a piece coming late in the original film noir cycle that sticks a major league femme fatale out there front and centre.
Dahl's Kathy Allen (nee Allenbourg) is hot to trot, a viper of the highest order, her beauty and sexuality is stunning, thus men line up to eat out of her hands.
Where once was sane and astute business men, now sit lap dogs soon ready to fall into the vipers nest.If that sounds familiar then of course it is, even from the pre code days there were film makers exploring the sex as a weapon angle, toying with bad girl persona's as a course of cinematic titillation.
Ken Hughes knows his draw card is Dahl, who even in black and white is heart achingly gorgeous, a smouldering vixen to literally die for.
The story trajectory is nothing new, Kathy tramples on every man she can to feather her own nest, but sooner or later things have to come to a head, where the reason for the distorted psyche will out and the crossroads of life ominously appears at film's closure.Better films out there that deal with the same themes?
The strange case of a woman who got all men but wanted none..
This is an amazing film for its very dense direction bringing the best out of a rather cheap story and some totally unknown B-actors, Herbert Marshall being the only film star among them and playing the shabbiest role.
Arlene Dahl in the lead reminds very much of Kim Novak in films like "Vertigo" , the same kind of superior beauty with something wrong about her, while Michael Goodliffe, somewhat reminding of Trevor Howard, stands for the passion that turns on the drama.
Philip Carey as the male lead succeeds in makíng a very complicated part and character quite convincing and likeable, the one who saves some human dignity in a pit of human pitfalls.It's as a psychological drama that the film is highly interesting, modern and timeless.
Almost everyone sees that there is something wrong about Kathy in her cruel disdain of men while at the same time everyone must fall for her, but no one can understand what the trouble is, least of all herself, or if she does, she keeps a splendid poker face and never loses her control, although, as it proves, she is constantly walking on a razor's edge by an abyss.
Ken Hughes later made other excellent films, especially "The Trials of Oscar Wilde", and this is no less impressing in its extremely smooth psychological direction where nothing is out of the context, like a perfect jig-saw puzzle with no pieces missing and all fitting perfectly..
Arlene Dahl was a beautiful woman.
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.
Better Than Average Soap - Wicked as They Come.
Arlene Dahl does a nice turn as a cold, manipulative woman, who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
Fab 50s fashions are the best thing this film has to offer with its story of a woman who works at some shirtwaist dress company who manipulates her way out of the "hoodlum" infested neighborhood in NY she comes from, claiming to be from tonier Boston!
As is Arlene Dahl - gorgeous - but I kind of find her even more remarkable later in her life on the game show circuit.
Well, I haven't seen any of her others but either they were pretty bad or her taste in hotties is better than her taste in pictures!Anyway, the mitigating finale of the film is kind of a disappointment, as is the general low level of her wickedness throughout.
Sure, she's "cheap and horrible" as Mildred Pierce said of Veda, but the whole story is told in more amusing pointed and flat out woman hatingly in some of those Hollywood precode films like "Babyface" with Babs Stanwyck (who never married any hotties).
This film almost gets to the finish line but for it's final minute.
Kathy (Arlene Dahl) is a conniving woman.
However, the film calls her 'wicked' and I see her much more as scheming and a cold-hearted woman with a plan.
Wicked conjures up images of a great Bette Davis character--like you'd find in "Jezebel" or "Of Human Bondage".
And, we only see more near the very end of the film...and it was long time coming!
It's a shame...as I was assuming I'd see Dahl playing more of a femme fatale than this lady..
According to Louella Parsons (around 1950) Arlene Dahl and Elizabeth Taylor were the only two Hollywood stars who could face the camera without makeup with complete confidence.
Aside from "Wicked As They Come", her next film was "Fortune Is a Woman" (aka "She Played With Fire").
I haven't seen that one but I have read the book and it is a super "old time" thriller about arson and insurance agents written by Winston Graham, who wrote "Marnie".Arlene Dahl's beauty really stands out in this movie, set in industrial England - but what's this!!
Entering the Stylewear beauty contest, she is determined to win and starts to work her charm on the boss (David Kossoff).
Of course when she wins, the boss and his son, who had been the original "object of her affection", go by the wayside.Kathy goes to London to start a new life and instantly meets Larry, a moody and extremely jealous sort, who wants to marry her but Kathy is determined to better herself and starts a typing course.
She goes on a spending spree and when Larry comes back from a Paris business trip, she is long gone.
Larry does get to know of her stay in Paris and starts sending her threatening letters and Kathy, now married to Collin's father in law is scared!!
Phillip Carey is on hand as the guy who really understands her and is there to pick up the pieces.I thought this was a good "rainy day" movie - you have to scratch your head as to why the first part was set in New York when the scenery was so very Northern industrial England, in fact it would have added a realistic touch.
Arlene Dahl is probably one of the only Hollywood beauties who never sat at home waiting for the phone to ring.
As Good As Arlene Dahl Gets.
Arlene Dahl is currently working at her 9 to 5 job but is also working it – on the men around her, that is.
Using the guy who likes her and his father who is the head of the committee, she surprisingly wins and gets a one-way trip out of there.
She meets one man after another, like Phil Carey who she honestly likes until she gets into a position she really wants.
It's all explained in the end, but not before she meets Herbert Marshall and gets him into a compromising situation forcing her hand and landing her in the catbird seat, for a while.
"Wicked as They Come" is an absorbing well-paced little film, reminiscent of Barbara Stanwyck's "Baby Face;" in fact, it seems to be a remake of sorts, with many similarities in plot.
"Wicked as They Come" gives the beautiful Arlene Dahl a three-dimensional and interesting role and may be one of her best movies with her as the sole lead.
If you like movies like "Baby Face," you'll love the duplicitous Arlene Dahl as she is as "Wicked as They Come.".
"Wicked as They Come" (1956) is an excellent drama which combines film noir, melodrama and psychological elements.
Arlene Dahl gives a superb performance as Kathy, a complex character.
Kathy is a beautiful and wicked woman who hates men.
Kathy wins a beauty contest by flirting with the judges, and receives stylish clothing and a trip to Europe.
Kathy obtains a secretarial job at a large advertising agency in London, and uses her feminine allure with the much older and married executive Stephan Collins (Herbert Marshall) to gain money and status.There is a classic bad girl confrontation scene between Collins' wife Virginia and Kathy.
Virginia opens her checkbook and offers to pay Kathy to stop seeing her husband.Kathy is disdainful of most men.
At this point the movie shifts from melodrama to film noir, with a mysterious prowler hiding in the shadows.Kathy's fashions are gorgeous.
Fashion is important for bad girls, because Kathy's glamorous clothes help her attract wealthy men.The movie was filmed in England, with sets of Paris.
"Wicked As They Come" (1956) is strictly for Arlene Dahl fans.
Dahl was in her late 20's when this was filmed and already on the downside of her career; something that tends to happen to hot young starlets when they begin to show a little mileage.
Dahl was still very beautiful but the Kathy Allenborg character is really a part for someone 18-19 years old.
Early in her career Dahl was one of the latter, which just compounds the miscasting problem.So the wheels pretty much fall off this thing right out of the gate (literally true as the movie opens with the overage Kathy walking though the gate of a factory); but there are still 94 minutes of running time to sit through.
Since neither the storyline nor the supporting performances are convincing, the best that can be said for "Wicked As They Come" is that there is a sort of unity of non-authenticity to the production.
She wins a third rate beauty contest by coming onto the sponsor (David Kossoff), then dumps him when he is no longer useful to her.
Kathy finally falls in love, accidentally kills her husband, is outed as a gold-digger, is sentenced to death, goes to jail, and is reprieved when the death is determined to be accidental.
"Wicked As They Come" is shot in black and white; there are probably some film noir elements and themes in the unconvincing script, but I doubt that anyone will cite it as an effective example of the genre.
Once again I could not stop watching the infernal thing....But I mean at every turn every single scene every single moment was filled with ire and angst and some type of invisible self-righteous indignation , every scene imbued with this until erelong there the atmosphere of everything is engulfed in some terrible mire - it was perfectly awful and yet...there is something hauntingly interesting about this gem here, something out of the ordinary - for one thing, even when she finally got everything she loves , she is yet not gratified, she wants more , sort of mirrors her swains rich or not...The whole thing is so creepy, and the ending actually killed love it seems, if there was ever any....What a strange universe, she can make any man fall in love with her but she is never satisfied , what the hell does this wicked beast need?
While fully appreciating that Wicked as They Come, was released in 1958, the film falls short, of delivering a plausible and interesting story.
The acting, direction, cinematography, etc., are all strong, and the film could have been very good, with the lead role cast to someone of a more suitable age.Arlene Dahl is very beautiful.
It is implied that she was "abused" as a child, and then somehow decides to exact her revenge on all men - two decades later.Miscasting of this sort, seems commonplace, when looking back at movies form this period, but this doesn't lesson the feeling that the movie would have been much more believable, and interesting, if they had cast someone young in the lead role.Wicked as They Come remains watchable, but not recommended - unless you've simply nothing else to do..
***SPOILERS*** Poor girl from the slums of Philadelphia Kathy Allenbourg later known as Kathy Allen played by the beautiful and classy Arlene Dahl gets her big brake in life winning a local beauty contest after putting out to the person who runs it Sam Lewis, David Kossoff.
Not long after landing in London Kathy charms and captivate big time photographer Larry "Big Bucks" Buckham, Michael Goodliffe,who after he gave her his credit or business charge card to buy herself a wedding dress Kathy runs it up to the limit and then pawns all the merchandise she bought with it then checking out on him!
This act on Kathy's part has Larry flip his lid and after being told he's on the dead beat sh*t list by his boss is arrested for assault, in him knocking out cold his both boss and one of the investigators an then locked away in a institution for the criminal insane.Kathy now on a roll gets involved with her new boss Stephen Colliins, Harbert Marshall, who's not only old enough to be her great-great grandfather but is also happily married to his wife Virginia, Faith Brooks, who's father is the CEO of the firm that she works for.
While all this is going on it's an not so old flame of Kathy's, whom she met on the flight to London, TV producer Tim O'Bannion, Philip Carey, who tries to strike up a relationship with her knowing that all she's after is Collins' money and may ends up, in having him engage in rough and exhausting sex with her, drop dead of a heart attack long before his time is up.
It's a ghost from Kathy's past that ends up doing in old man Collins with her, in shooting him, getting indited for his murder!***SPOILERS*** It turns out that Larry Buckham just released from the mental institution had been stalking Kathy and driving her insane with fear-with anonymous phone calls and unsigned notes-that lead to her shooting her husband mistaking him for a prowler out to get her.
It's an open and shut case for the prosecution with Kathy getting convicted and sent to the gallows but it's Tim, whom she dumped, who ends up coming to her rescue.
It soon turns out that Kathy had developed a hatred of men when she was assaulted by a local Philly street gang back in 1939 when she was 14.
It's Tim who finally gets Larry to admit that it was him that's been stalking and threatening Kathy that had her mistakenly kill her husband to get the murder charge dropped and have her only get convicted for 2nd degree homicide.
It was also Tim that restored Kathy's ability to see men as individuals not the street gang of thugs that assaulted and raped her back in Philly so many years ago in 1939.
And with that Kathy promised Tim to renew their relationship, that was on the rocks, as soon as she gets out of prison!