L'arriviste

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...