Saturday, 27 October 2018

CAST A DARK SHADOW **

It's a load of old tosh but its also a lot of fun with a grand cast pulling out all the stops. Dirk Bogarde is the psychopathic killer who does away with rich wife Mona Washbourne, making her death look like an accident but when he finds she's made a will leaving all her money to her sister in Jamaica he marries Margaret Lockwood for her money only to find she's not quite so easy to get rid off. They, as well as Kay Walsh as a rich newcomer to the district and Kathleen Harrison as a slightly dotty maid, are all at the top of their game and Lewis Gilbert directs as if he actually wanted us to take all of this seriously. It may stick very much to its one-room set, betraying its theatrical origins, but thanks to Gilbert and cinematographer Jack Asher it remains resolutely cinematic.

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