One Paragraph Movie Review: The Man In Grey

Three hundred and forty-seventh film: The Man in Grey , a 1943 British movie about a scandalous 1800s love rectangle that starts with schoolgirls having a cheerful, boisterous snowball fight and ends with a man beating his mistress to death with a poker. Rich Clarissa befriends poor Esther in boarding school. Clarissa marries cold-hearted Rohan as her society duty. Esther introduces Clarissa to lovable rogue Rokeby. Clarissa has an affair with Rokeby, Esther has an affair with Rohan, everybody tries to avoid a scandal, and the whole thing ends with two murders — one slow, one quick — and a distracting modern day auction house side-plot. Surprisingly absorbing, to enjoy it you have to blink slowly through the of-its-time atrocities, like the child actor in blackface playing a trusted pageboy, references to West Indians as half-crazed savages, two brazen uses of the n-word, and Pokeby asking Esther “has anyone ever told you what a slut you are?”. Watchable, with pretty frocks and score-spoiling racism. Two useless fairground prizes out of five.