The Root of All Evil

Phyllis Calvert stars as Jeckie, a woman from a very poor family. She seems like a decent sort and is in love with Albert, the son of a local rich merchant. However, the merchant, Grice, is a nasty guy. He refuses to let the son marry her simply because she is poor. What's worse, she desperately needs a loan or her family will lose everything. Grice naturally refuses (since he is, after all, a jerk) and the family loses everything...even the family dog!! As a result, Jeckie is determined to do everything she can never to be poor again AND to destroy the Grices...especially since her fiancé didn't lift a finger to help her and ended up marrying another woman.

What follows is Jeckie's odyssey in the business world. Because she is extremely clever and driven, she is able to work her way up to the middle and even the upper classes. It all begins with a breach of promise suit against the Grice family and ends with her having everything...but discovers she isn't as happy as she'd expected.

Overall, this is a very well acted film and I appreciate that Jeckie is NOT some one-dimensional caricature but someone who is multi- faceted. And, despite being very cold in the business world, she is NOT some stereotypical evil rich shrew. Well worth seeing.

The title already gives you a pretty good idea in advance what to expect, and audiences in postwar austerity Britain would have been only too aware that while money may not bring you happiness, lack of it is guaranteed to make you very unhappy indeed.

The only film ever directed by prolific screenwriter Brock Williams; as it progresses it cries out for shots of Phyllis Calvert on horseback brandishing a riding crop, yet remains defiantly studio bound throughout most of its nearly two hours. Stephen Dade's atmospheric photography however frequently makes amends for the many obvious studio exteriors, and you keep watching, wondering how this is all going to resolve itself...

This should have been the title of this soap opera that follows the rags to riches life of a poor daughter of an unsuccessful farmer. Phyllis Calvert shines in "my" title role and John McCallum and Michael Rennie are excellent in support. The movie lacks the grit of Mildred Pierce, a film that similarly depicted the ascent of a driven businesswoman, and it fails to develop its supporting cast as fully as that superb movie does. Nevertheless, we get the gist of Jeckie's business acumen when she rattles off how she would save the family farm business, her ruthlessness in pursuing her lawsuit against her former lover, and her risk-taking determination in opening a glossy grocery store across the street from her rival. Like "Pierce" her dedication to hard work is also on display while still allowing her to be vulnerable. The ending missed the mark for me as I felt Calvert and McCallum's characters veered off course. Still this is a fine movie and should be seen.

There is not much to say about this film, actually. It is a very conventional and typical romantic and colourful Gainsborough feature with all the usual assets: interesting story, interesting characters, all done by excellent players, especially Phyllis Calvert in the lead, John McCallum as a Stewart Granger kind of knight to assist her whether she likes it or not, and Michael Rennie as a knavish joker - there is a great fight between the two after the middle of the film, and all the other characters are perfectly fit also, but there is one thing about this film that makes it special. It's the music. The name of the composer is Bretton Byrd, a name hardly noticeable at all at the end of the list of the crew, but it somehow makes the film stick together in a constant beautiful flow, always only as an accompaniment, there is no melody to stick out and stay on your mind, but it rather soothes the spectator as well as the actors into keeping the action going and the interest increasing, like a warm but excellent substitute for all the splendid colours that are missing in this black-and-white representation, and making the film from beginning to end wholly enjoyable.

Money, of course - as if having financial security and happiness are mutually exclusive states of being. Phyllis Calvert is the sweet innocent who determines to have her revenge on her fiance's overbearing father after he splits them up. She succeeds in her aim by building a rival retail empire, but only by pushing away those who care for her. It's a solid tale until an unconvincing final reel.