rated: NR

In the 1940s, Margaret Lockwood was one of Britain's biggest movie stars. For a couple of years she was actually the most popular leading actress. It's hard to describe today what that actually meant. In those days, before rock stars, tv stars, celebrities famous for being celebrities, the fleeting attention span of mtv watchers (can such a time have existed?!) the movies were the royalty of popular arts and the movie star was the equivalent of the rock star today. So if you think of Madonna today then think of Lockwood in the same light back then in terms of popularity.

So place Lockwood & Madonna together in your mind with the only difference being that Lockwood was bigger in the UK, had talent and was beautiful.

When the '50s came what did she do? Why, hook up with the director Herbert Wilcox and make rubbish like this. Unsurprisingly, her popularity plummeted and it is films like this and her decision to work with Wilcox that contributed to her virtual retirement from the screen when barely 40.

Can an actor in the history of cinema ever have made a worst choice of director than she? I, for the life of me, can't think of such an instance.

In this movie, for a start, she was in her late 30s and too old to be playing Orson Welles's daughter. They were around the same age for god sake and it is the first thing you will query when you see them together for the first time.

This rubbish wasn't confined to British actors; it involved American talent as well. Welles is all over the place in his role with his dodgy wig and even dogier South American accent. He is so hammy you'd want to eat him! When he was great he was, er, Citizen Kane, but when he was bad he was without equal. And this is Welles at his worst.

Lockwood's love interest in this is the American Forrest Tucker. Not a bad choice. Only one slight problem Wilcox overlooked when casting him. He can't act! I swear the guy is made out of wood.

Shot in a terrible process called Trucolor. Do not adjust your sets. It was meant to look like that.