Boba_Fett1138 You can regard this movie as an '40's chick flick that has a story of a typical romantic-dramatic novel, women love to read. It has all of the ingredients you could expect, like true love, friendship and rivalry. It has not just a triangular love story but its even more complicated than that. It's all well constructed though but this nevertheless doesn't mean I can regard this movie as being something different than a chick flick.The story truly saved this movie for me, or else it would had been a real dreadful one to watch. It has all of the typical clichés women seem to care about but as a man it just isn't all as compelling to watch. The story is solid and keeps you interested throughout. The love stories are original since it doesn't always picks the easiest road to walk on. Marriage and friendships turn bitter and characters are changing throughout. I like movies in which its characters are slowly but steadily changing into someone different.It also is of course thanks to the acting that this all works out so well, even though the dialog and directing style are all extremely old fashioned. But oh well, this is of course consistent and normal for the genre. In the '40's director Leslie Arliss made several movies like this one, often with the same actors involved, without ever gaining real fame for it really. Women will surely appreciate this movie even better than I did already.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

theowinthrop James Mason (like Richard Burton, Edward Arnold, and many other splendid actors - and actresses) never received the Oscar for any of his performances. This is one of the unfair side issues regarding the Academy Awards, as a measuring stick to film stardom. Everyone who has seen Mason's performances (and the others I mentioned) may know they are appearing in a "turkey", but they are serving their sections of the "turkey" with deluxe dressing. When they are appearing in "filet mignon" or the like, they really reach the heights. So, despite his lack of Academy recognition, Mason is remembered with great fondness by everyone who enjoys movies. To this day his voice is imitated in cartoons if you want to see a snooty, aristocratic villain.Yet I said "villain". How can I call the wounded, deserted IRA gunman Johnny (ODD MAN OUT) or Norman Main (A STAR IS BORN) or Humbert Humbert (LOLITA) a "villain". Yes, he did play Mr. Van Dam in NORTH BY NORTHWEST, but even that fellow had his less villainous moments (too few perhaps).The fact is, when Mason came to the U.S. to appear in Hollywood films in the late 1940s, it was as one of Britain's best villains. This was odd. He had been in films since the late 1930s, and had played a shell shock victim in THE HILL HAVE EYES as well as other parts. In FIRE OVER ENGLAND (an early role) he was an English Catholic nobleman who is planning to aid King Philip of Spain (for reasons of politics and religious freedom) but who is drowned fleeing the police of Elizabeth I. None of these performances had gained him his fame, deserved as it was. It was THE MAN IN GRAY that gained him fame.Set in Regency England (c. 1790 - 1837), Mason was what was termed "a Regency Buck". This was a fashionable, upper crust Regency aristocrat or wealthy man who enjoyed his privileges - frequently at the expense of everyone else around them. When Leslie Howard played Sir Percy Blakeney in THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, his character is a foppish version of "the Regency Buck", acting the buffoon at the expense of Col Higgensbottom and even the Prince of Wales - regarding cravats - to hide his serious mission). Mason's character is actually a more openly forceful version of this character. The Marquis of Rohan is a great grandee of England (despite having the last name of a noted French Aristocratic house - connected to the "Affair of the Diamond Necklace"). He is fully aware of his position, and the subservient position of everyone else involved with it.Phyllis Calvert is Clarissa, the daughter of a local good family, who was a close friend of Margaret Lockwood (Hester). Their relations is similar to that of Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp in VANITY FAIR, as good girl and bad girl. Rohan chooses to marry Clarissa because she is a proper (and subservient) wife to breed an heir. Clarissa tries to help Hester by getting her a good position in the household (bad mistake). Rohan is soon bored by marriage, and Clarissa mistakes this as a signal that she is on her own. She meets a traveling actor named Rokeby (Stewart Granger) and starts a relationship with him - egged on by Hester.Hester intention is to reveal it at the right time to Rohan, and replace the disgraced Clarissa. And she does. But it actually does two things. He does go after Rokeby to kill him. But after taking care of that problem, Rohan finds Clarissa going into physical decline. And his better character comes out. He tries to help his wife, but nothing he does helps...and she finally dies. The Marquis is heartbroken. SPOILER COMING UP: Hester still blind to the reality of the situation, confronts Rohan, and reveals her own passions. But now Rohan is fully aware of why Hester made her revelations, and what it has led to. Furious at being used, and at his own cost and of the woman he got to love, Rohan grabs a horse whip and whips Hester to death! It is an orchestrated, violent conclusion (and it's violence may be why the film is rarely shown on television). Despite making Rohan a killer at the end, because he is killing the real villain in the plot Rohan gets the audience to cheer him on! He becomes the "anti-hero" of the story. It gained Mason his international standing as "a man you love to hate". And it opened the doors to future Hollywood stardom.

howardmorley Most of us have seen Gainsborough's film of "The Wicked Lady" (1945) as it is easily commercially available on DVD/Video and is shown on old movie channels and I suppose is arguably Margaret Lockwood's (ML) most famous role in the public's eyes."The Man in Grey" (1943), another Gainsborough costume drama film, was produced two years earlier and must have had a decisive influence when casting for the aforementioned film.Once again Margaret is at her scheming, calculating, evil best in the role of Hesther.In the "Miss Goody Two Shoes" role of Clarissa, Phyllis Calvert oozes genuine charm.James Mason (JM) was developing his character of the upper class sadistic cad as Lord Rohan (he and ML of course had the principal roles in "The Wicked Lady"), while Stuart Grainger inhabits his customary charm in the role of Rokeby.Included in the main supporting character roles (who also appeared in the latter film) were Gainsborough stalwarts Martita Hunt as Miss Patchett and a disguised (it didn't fool me) Beatrice Varley playing a gypsy.Finally consistent direction for these two films was given by its director, Leslie Arliss.The action opens at an auction when a later generation of Clarissa and Rokeby (played by the same actors mentioned above) form a similar friendship as their forebears.They are bidding on objects which subsequently feature in the "go back in time" drama.Shift back 250 years or so and Lord Rohan needs an aristocratic brood mare to carry on the line of Rohans.Clarissa is put in the starting frame at a time when marriages were more of a property contract between "noble" families, and certainly not bound in love.That's where mistresses came in.I will not provide a "spoiler" but like in "The Wicked Lady" the good lady invites a veritable cobra into her house and soon ML is plotting to take over her role since she and JM have so much in common.If you enjoyed "The Wicked Lady" you are bound to relish "The Man in Grey".With such a pedigree of actors on hand it cannot fail to please.

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.