Light in the Dark

That's James Mason, that is, in a Gainsborough melodrama, and pretty well everyone's a nasty piece of work. He's the notorious rake Lord Rohan, who requires an heir from Clarissa (Phyllis Calvert) whilst he gets on with having fun, and who is distracted by Clarissa's old school friend (friend is perhaps overstating it), Hester (Margaret Lockwood). Whilst Hester and Rohan gets designs on each other, Clarissa falls in love with Hester's old beau of convenience, Barbary (Stewart Granger), who has a nice line in Othellos and highway men. Rather than sitting down and sorting it all out, Hester has to ruin things for everyone, and it gets pretty nasty for everyone.

Every one gets punished in the end, and no one's pleasant, with the only problem in the end being that not everyone is punished enough - although death is pretty final. And there's a rather superfluous present day framing device of contemporary descendents of Barbary and Clarissa, who presumably get to live happily ever after. Some fascinatingly strong woman, but the film is a tad let down buy some dodgy racial stuff.