Wicked as They Come (1956) User Reviews

A real potboiler

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 15 December 2007]

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. In 1956, he was as hunky as they get. 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. To her, they're just steppingstones to big bucks. One man (Carey) sees through her and acts as her conscience throughout the film.

If this film had been a lot worse or a lot better, it could today be a camp classic. Unfortunately it falls in between. Kathy pulls some outrageous stunts, but the script doesn't have enough bite to it. Not only that, it's entirely predictable. Case in point is Kathy's romance with her boss, Stephen (Herbert Marshall). He agrees to leave his wife for her. Later that evening, Kathy realizes that Stephen's wife is no less than the daughter of the owner of the company. Leaving her will certainly put Stephen out of a job. When Stephen's wife confronts Kathy in the ladies' room, you had to know she'd be calling Kathy "Stepmommy" pretty soon, now that Kathy knows the score and the players. That's hardly my favorite Kathy moment - the best is when she becomes engaged and practically buys out a store on the guy's charge account, then pawns everything and blows town. 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. Had she been around at the height of Hollywood's golden age, she perhaps would have had more opportunities. 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...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 21 September 2007]

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. The sensible ending leaves open the question of whether she and Carey will ever be able to sort out the issues that kept them apart.

As Good As Arlene Dahl Gets

[JLRMovieReviews · 8/10 · 4 September 2014]

Arlene Dahl is currently working at her 9 to 5 job but is also working it – on the men around her, that is. She is trying to get out of the rut she's been in, having to live with her stepfather who raised her (after her mother left them) but with his loud, obnoxious, low-class friends around, always ogling and grabbing her. She sets her sights on winning a beauty pageant that would take her out of the little town. 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. But what does she really want out of life? To be taken of? Money? And why does she hate men and their touch so much? 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."

Portrait in Smoke.

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 17 July 2014]

Wicked as They Come is directed by Ken Hughes who also co-writes the screenplay with Sigmund Miller and Robert Westerby. It stars Arlene Dahl, Philip Carey, Herbert Marshall, Michael Goodlife and Ralph Truman. Music is by Malcolm Arnold and cinematography by Basil Emmott.

Adapted from the Bill S. 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? Yes, absolutely. That doesn't mean this should be readily dismissed as a viable option to those with an interest in such femme fatale dalliances. Dahl is super, her male co-stars equally so, and Hughes steers it safely to a perfectly ambiguous finale. Welcome to noirville, men enter at your own risk. 7/10

Technically among the Best made at the Time

[rollotomassiu · 7/10 · 12 May 2018]

This film almost gets to the finish line but for it's final minute. The end lacks a master touch but gets to that point with a creative plot. The Camera work is among the very best and drives the story almost flawlessly.

Routine

[Handlinghandel · 6/10 · 26 September 2007]

Arlene Dahl was a beautiful woman. She doubtless still is. She had a cold look, which works for this movie. She plays a gold-digger with little heart. 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. That movie packs a real wallop, though. This one is chic but tepid.

But they only get one life to live.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 23 May 2019]

Back in 1981, Soap Opera Digest reported on the reunion between Arlene Dahl and Philip Carey on the daytime soap opera "One Life to Live" where Arlene was guest starring for three months as the mother of a character involved with Carey's wealthy patriarch, Asa Buchanan. Dahl also got a ton of publicity for her real life son Lorenzo Lamas playing the grandson of Jane Wyman on the night time soap opera "Falcon Crest". 25 years before Miss Dahl and Mr Carey had appeared in this delightfully campy film noir that has to be seen at least once to make it on to audiences list of favorite movie soap operas.

Certainly, this is going to be compared to the 1933 pre-code drama Babyface which starred Barbara Stanwyck as a social climber going from the slums of Erie Pennsylvania to the skyscrapers of Manhattan and later Paris. Dahl follows the same route, with an abusive stepfather, a notorious past and obvious hatred of men, basically using every single male she meets to rise from beauty contest winner to wife of the corporation she gets a job in as a stenographer. Somewhere in the midst of that rise she meets Philip Carey who begins to wonder why she is incapable of giving love yet can take it away from The Men Who offer it to her as long as she is rising up in the company and socially. When she ends up as the wife of the elderly owner of the company, paranoia sets in thanks to her past coming back to haunt her, and this leads her to end up with a gun in her hand and shooting without regards to whom she hits!

With her ravishing red hair and beautiful complexion, Arlene Dahl cries for Technicolor in this extraordinilly entertaining film. Among the men she uses to get to the top is acting had Herbert Marshall, son-in-law of the company owner, and facing the confrontation with his wife, the owner's daughter, that has stunning consequences for everybody involved. Carey, a rather cynical character himself, keeps reminding her throughout of how she's destroying herself, and it is his discovery that turns the twist at the end to a conclusion of hope and atonement. This is a timely film in many aspects, although Dahl's vulnerability seeps through in several scenes where you can tell she is craving true affection and then need to be loved, not lusted after simply because of her looks. Like Stanwyck, Lupino, Trevor and other film noir Vixens, Dahl creates an unforgettable character that ranks as one of the best written Femme fatales ever in film history.

cute but there's much better along these lines out there

[marymorrissey · 3 April 2005]

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! Sadly it seems they ran out of a costume budget halfway through, when, in spite of having hooked her biggest fish yet, she starts wearing outfits over again (such as a hideous white stole) - outfits less stylish, strangely, now that she lives in Paris!

The locations/sets are to die for. As is Arlene Dahl - gorgeous - but I kind of find her even more remarkable later in her life on the game show circuit. That's some long lasting glamour she's got! Besides as a young gal she looked too much like Janet Leigh. She married some hotties in her time and offsprang some too. Wow. Lex Barker, Lorenzo Lamas. Mmmm mmm! Not too shabby, tabby!

The film was introduced by a historian reading excerpts from a transcript of a suit brought by AD against the studio over a composite photo made for publicity purposes for which she maintained she never posed (and it certainly isn't in the film) in which someone kisses her nude shoulder. She insisted it was a "wanton" image, while maintaining she was "no prude". The court however found the image "delicate and artistic" or some such... she lost the case. All the same she says this is one of her favorite vehiculars. 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). "Wicked" pulling its punches didn't really add much to it. Girl, if this is "wicked as they come" then I guess there are no whores, only (violated and somewhat narcissistic) madonnas!

Better Than Average Soap - Wicked as They Come

[arthur_tafero · 7/10 · 14 September 2018]

Arlene Dahl does a nice turn as a cold, manipulative woman, who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Along the way she goes a bit off the deep end of the morality scale, and inflicts some unnecessary punishment on some over-optimistic suitors. The director, who was also the writer, Harris, does a pretty good job of story-telling and framing most of the scenes. The emotional battles we see raging on the screen are ones that many viewers will have experieinced at one time or another. This character could have been formulated, however, without the last-minute copout rationalization given by the story line. Despite thiis one convenient mechanism, the film still holds up pretty well as a solid soap.

"When Dames Play Back"!!!

[kidboots · 8/10 · 29 August 2011]

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. Studio heads thought Arlene could be another Ann Sheridan but after her MGM contract expired with only her role as Red Skelton's wife in "Three Little Words" as a standout, she found she was not wanted by any other studio. She didn't really care but, oddly, it was only after this that she was offered more meatier bad girl parts. 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!! it's Sidney James putting on a "dese, dems and dose" accent!! She is a beauty who hates to be touched - "she ain't been the same since "that" happened to her when she was a kid" one of Sid's cronies says. This is a recurring theme throughout the movie, in an attempt to explain her behaviour and character. 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. However when her hotel bill comes due, she begins to rethink his proposal. She goes on a spending spree and when Larry comes back from a Paris business trip, she is long gone. To a secretarial job with a befuddled boss, Stephen Collins (Herbert Marshall). Things take their usual course and before too long she is negotiating a promotion to the Paris firm in return for not seeing Collins anymore. But hang on!! didn't Larry go to Paris on business?? - the stage is set for some sticky shenanigans!! 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!! Things don't go to plan, yes Larry does start prowling about the house at night, Kathy brings out her gun, but the person who is killed is Kathy's husband - and no one is more surprised than Kathy!! 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. Always more interested in cosmetics and beauty products, in 1952 she had a line of lingerie and nightwear. She later on had a beauty column and wrote a few books on beauty care.

Another Eve Harrington

[HotToastyRag · 7/10 · 12 May 2021]

Following the success of All About Eve, there were many knock-offs to give other actresses their day in the sun. "I could have been Eve Harrington!" they all cry. If you want to see Arlene Dahl being "as wicked as they come," then check out the aptly titled drama.

Beautiful, and with a sensational figure, Arlene finds out early on that when men are attracted to her, they lose their good judgment. They'll do anything for her, and she learns to take advantage. Starting with her stepfather and his friends when she's young, Arlene gets a warped view of love and romantic relationships. They're nothing but a way for a woman to get ahead, she believes. And she wants to go straight to the top. Along the way, she steps on and over Herbert Marshall, Philip Carey, and a string of other foolish men.

The witty screenplay has lines that will make you chuckle even though the situation is tense. "How much do you love my husband?" Faith Brook asks Arlene, while extracting her checkbook from her purse. Poor Philip Carey falls in love with Arlene and thinks she could be different if she learns to love in return. When she repeatedly disappoints him, he quips, "You could try the want-ads. Wanted: rich husband, preferably someone else's." If you're an Arlene Dahl fan, don't miss this dramatic thriller. It's spicy and fun.

Kiddy warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, since there's a rape scene, I wouldn't let my kids watch this movie.

The strange case of a woman who got all men but wanted none.

[clanciai · 10/10 · 7 February 2018]

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. There are also parallels to Polanski's "Repulsion", it's a related case, but here you get the full story, although not until the end. You are left hanging in the end with everything lost but hope, which is no more than a faint light that no one can know if it will survive.

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.

Unconvincing

[aimless-46 · 3/10 · 13 December 2007]

"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. I'm not sure what went into the casting choice but it is clearly the wrong one. Dahl was still very beautiful but the Kathy Allenborg character is really a part for someone 18-19 years old. Some older actresses are physically convincing playing younger women just as some younger actresses are physically convincing playing older roles. 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.

Kathy is poor but ambitious. You soon conclude that she hates men but is not above using them to improve her social position. Eventually you learn that when younger she was a rape victim. 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. Kossoff is unconvincing.

She passes on a struggling television producer (Phillip Carey) and goes after a jealous photographer. Her next mark is the married head of the London office of the Dowling's advertising firm. She parlays this into a transfer to Dowling's head office in Paris where she marries old man Dowling himself.

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. It sounds like a lot happens but everything is unconvincing and lame, an effective point of view is never established, and it is impossible to identify or sympathize with any of the characters. Accordingly the 95 minute running time seems much longer.

"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.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

She is beautiful and wicked

[spotted-owl · 9/10 · 29 August 2014]

"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. She ruthlessly uses her smoldering beauty to acquire money and social status. Her demeanor is elegant but cool. Beneath her glamorous allure, Kathy has a heart of ice.

Kathy lives in the slums, and works at a dress factory. However, she is ambitious. Kathy wins a beauty contest by flirting with the judges, and receives stylish clothing and a trip to Europe.

In London, Kathy becomes involved with photographer Larry Buckham, who has a hot temper. Using Larry's credit, Kathy purchases gowns, furs and jewelry, and leaves Larry with the bills.

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. However, she seems fond of Tim O'Bannion (Phil Carey), a handsome television producer with the agency. O'Bannion senses that Kathy has a tragic reason to hate men.

There are dramatic plot twists, and Kathy becomes ensnared in a murder situation. At this point the movie shifts from melodrama to film noir, with a mysterious prowler hiding in the shadows.

Kathy's fashions are gorgeous. She wears slim suits and gowns which accent her hourglass figure. Most of her clothes are black, symbolizing her amoral character. She also wears fur coats, hats, gloves, and a robe trimmed with fur. 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. This is an underrated film. Hopefully a DVD will be released soon.

Gang rape - how horrible!

[rosemariedamasse · 10/10 · 25 May 2017]

No doubt she is wicked but nevertheless my heart reaches out to her. Being the victim of gang rape obviously left her scarred. It is an excellent movie - brings awareness re people who have been severely traumatized by their past. How very sad!

I think more movies of this sort should be made.

Not Wicked Enough

[freediver-35010 · 4/10 · 19 April 2017]

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. But believing that she has waited until she is middle aged, to decide to capitalize on her looks, and begin sleeping her way toward financial security, pushes the realm of absurdity to the ridiculous. 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.

Delightfully tawdry

[mls4182 · 10/10 · 16 June 2021]

Arlene Dahl isn't good at much, but in this she excels. She plays a young woman from bad circumstances who uses her charms and mostly wicked cleverness to improve her lot in life. She rarely haherfio put out, if ever. THAT is skill.

There is one scene where she charges thousands of pounds of jewelry, clothes and furs to her fiance's account, takes them immediately to a pawn shop for cash, then skips town.

During her marriage to Onassis, Jackie was given a healthy allowance which she banked, and also an unlimited clothing allowance. She bought thousands of dollars of clothes a week and had an assistant sell them immediately without wearing them. I am CERTAIN she learned from this movie. You can too!

This was so creepy, and yet...

[juanmuscle · 10/10 · 11 March 2019]

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? Besides the obvious?

With a title like this and the subject matter....I was expecting so much more.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 12 December 2016]

Kathy (Arlene Dahl) is a conniving woman. Through the course of this film, she schemes again and again to take herself from her humble country routes to riches. 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". So, instead of pure evil...we instead see lots of manipulations. She's not nice...and she's a bit of a jerk...but she should have been so much more. And, we only see more near the very end of the film...and it was long time coming! But it STILL isn't exactly 'wicked'! The overall effect is mildly interesting but no more. It's a shame...as I was assuming I'd see Dahl playing more of a femme fatale than this lady.

Remake of Baby Face?

[malcolmgsw · 4/10 · 21 September 2023]

Baby Face is one of the best known pre code films. Made nu Warner's on 1933 and starring Barbara Stanwyck as a secretary who works her way up in a bank starting on the ground floor and bedding someone floor by floor until she reaches the penthouse.

Here we are supposed to believe that Arlene Dahl starts in a schmatta factory and then goes through gradually older and richer men,ruining their lives in the process,till she marries an older guide and gets her commupence.

The film is not helped by the fact that this film was made inn the UK with numerous British character actors doing their best to speak with an American accent.

Sargent stop him at once he's gone mad!

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 16 December 2016]

***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. That takes her on an all expense flight & vacation to Europe where she can make it big by marrying a duke baron prince or just plain garden variety millionaire to improve her status in life. 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. That event in her life almost drove her to almost become a "Lesbo"-Slang talk for lesbian-and has taken out that hatred for every men that she ever met or got involved with! 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. That only called for a six month sentence behind bars not for dancing at the end of a hang man's rope. 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!