When I get fed up with what I’m working on — or if I actually finish something and need a break — a good old vintage film is often what I look for. The Wicked Lady (1945) is cracking fun. I regret not getting to it sooner. I used to have an aversion to Margaret Lockwood which certainly Bedelia cured. Not sure what it came from and hey JAMES MASON as a highwayman! Suffice to say that this Gainsborough costume drama earned its fame and is surprisingly saucy for its time — apparently too much so for American release and required some alterations. In addition it features evil twins, beau-snatching, Michael Rennie, the Thames Frost Fair — and I picked up a copy of the novel I enjoyed it so much.

Less stellar but certainly much fun nonetheless is Son of Monte Cristo (1940). ‘Whoever this Torch is, he’s dangerous. He has a sense of humour!’ I mostly clicked on it because of George Sanders, my favourite scoundrel. He gets to buckle his swash a little but mostly moons over a supremely badly-wardrobed Joan Bennett. Louis Hayward has been in many movies I’ve see — though not his version of The Man in the Iron Mask with Joan, so I must bookmark that. Certainly much of the plot proves timely with our present descent into fascism, alas. Trying to remember to update things to Letterboxd as I watch or as I remember, as there are after all decades of films to add — although with the news that Netflix is trying to buy Letterboxd, maybe I shouldn’t bother.