The Man in Grey

A movie that had been sitting on my DVR for some time was the early James Mason movie The Man in Grey. Recently, I finally got around to watching it.

The movie was released in 1943 and starts off fairly close to the present day, during World War II in London. There's an auction being held at the estate of the Rohans, with things being sold off because the last of the legal heirs to the estate has died. Some of the stuff is selling for a pretty penny, but two people of much more modest means show up and sit next to each other: women's naval auxiliary member Clarissa Richmond (Phyllis Calvert) says she's a descendent of the Rohans, while soldier Swinton Rokeby (Stewart Granger at the very beginning of his career) says he's descended from somebody who knew the Rohans intimately. One of the items up for bid is a trinket box along with the contents inside; bidding on it however gets interrupted for the blackout. Somehow Clarissa and Swinton aren't forced to leave the building like everybody else, and are actually able to go up to the box and look at the contents inside, something I would have thought was a major no-no at an auction. But this is a needed plot device for the fairly obvious flashback....

We head back to Regency England, which for those who don't know their British history or don't remember my review of The Madness of King George a few months back is the 1810s, when George III was finally declared incompetent to reign, but still alive, so that his son, who would become George IV, was named regent. Miss Patchett (Martita Hunt) runs a boarding school for girls of a certain class in the hopes of "establishing" them either as wives to the nobility, or in other cases governesses to such families. Another Clarissa (obviously also played by Phyllis Calvert) is one of the students at the school, and much lower-class Hesther Shaw (Margaret Lockwood) is accepted there as a favor. Clarissa becomes friends with Hesther even though this probably isn't a good idea.

Hesther leaves school to get married, and Clarissa also leaves so that her godmother can marry her off to a suitable man. That man happens to be the titular "man in grey", Lord Rohan (James Mason), known throughout London society for his playboy ways. He'd like to keep being a playbody, but he also needs to knock up a woman who can produce him a legitimate male heir -- note the word legitimate there -- so he marries Clarissa, with the understanding that it's as much a marriage of convenience as anything.

Some time later, Clarissa sees a poster for a production of Shakespeare's Othello. She notices that the actress playing Desdemona is one Hesther Barbary, and she's convinced that this is the Hesther she knew from Miss Patchett's school, so she decides to attend the play. Along the way she's waylaid by a highwayman, Peter Rokeby (again Stewart Granger), who it turns out is not a highwayman at all but the actor playing Othello. Clarissa, having met Hesther again, offers to obtain for her a position as governess to the Rohan heir, but Lord Rohan says that Hesther should be Clarissa's lady companion.

Of course, Lord Rohan falls in love with Hesther. But Rokeby has already fallen in love with Clarissa, and when they meet again at Epdsom Downs for the big Derby race, Hesther puts a plan into motion that will also get Rokeby employed by Lord Rohan so that Rokeby and Clarissa will fall in love, leaving Hesther free to marry Lord Rohan and have the life of luxury she's always wanted. Of course, things don't quite work out that way for everybody....

The Man in Grey is a good example of the British studio-era period piece. The players here are slightly better suited to play the parts than their Hollywood counterparts, as there's not quite as much perceived need on the part of the studio to stage things in a way that make their stars look good. A lot of British actors having been classically trained also probably has something to do with why the seem more appropriate for period pieces. All of the leads pull off their parts with ease, making The Man in Grey a more than competent movie to watch. And thanks to a story that's more than adequate as well as an escape from the war raging in real life, it's easy to see why this was such a big hit in the UK when it was released.

For any fan of classic Hollywood looking for a prestige film they might not be familiar with, The Man in Grey is a good place to start.