Lack of good storyline.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

JASSY is a slow-moving historical drama/romance that has the benefit of being shot in Technicolor which looks great for 1947. The plot is set in the gentrified world of the 17th century and features a sprawling narrative involving multiple characters and the ways in which their lives intertwine. The opening scenes, in which a drunken lord ends up gambling everything he owns, are very good indeed and feature Dennis Price at his best in a brief cameo. Basil Sydney's ruthless villain is very fine too and reminded me of Lionel Barrymore in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, he's the ultimate Scrooge. The plot slows down and begins to drag when the second generation characters are introduced.Romantic male lead Dermot Walsh is a bit of a drag and doesn't bring the brooding charisma that his 1950s work would allow for. Don't blame him, blame the lifeless script. Margaret Lockwood, familiar from Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES, is better and resolutely sassy for the era. However, the narrative feels rather long-winded and the outcome inevitable, although there are some enjoyable sub-plots, one of which includes a cast-against-type Esma Cannon as a dumb servant. The film was directed, somewhat lethargically, by Bernard Knowles, who would go on to work extensively in television in the 1950s, shooting the likes of COLONEL MARCH OF Scotland YARD.

Sprawling costume drama casts Margaret Lockwood as a gypsy girl Jassy who has second sight. She gets a job as maid in the household of a once-great family who have lost everything due to father's (Dennis Price) gambling. But she falls in love with the son (Dermot Walsh) whose ambition it is to regain the family estate from the cruel master (Basil Sydney).Later, Jassy gets a job at the school for girls where she befriends the daughter of the cruel master (Patricia Roc) and poses as her friend when the girl is expelled from the school. She moves into the estate where she is made housekeeper. But the cruel master has his eye on her.In another storyline, a brutish blacksmith beats his wife and daughter (Esma Cannon) causing the daughter to lose her voice via a throat injury. She eventually gets a job as maid in the estate where Jassy has gone to live. The "loony" as she is called, becomes the devoted slave to Jassy.After a riding accident, the cruel master is saved by the loony. He is returned to his estate where Jassy takes full control. But after his death Jassy and the loony are accused of murder.Lockwood is terrific as Jassy, the gypsy girl who is kinder and truer than all the grand people around her. Cannon turns is a superb performance as the pitiful loony. Dennis Price, Patricia Roc, Dermot Walsh, and Basil Sydney are also very good. Co-stars include Linden Travers, Ernest Thesiger, Cathleen Nesbitt, Susan Shaw, Hugh Pryse, Jean Cadell, Beatrice Varley, Torin Thatcher, and Nora Swinburne.

As a cameraman Bernard Knowles worked on some decent British films from the Silent Era through to Talkies but may have been misguided in taking on the role of Director and with only a handful of features to his credit, mostly unsatisfying - Easy Money for example - he saw out his career behind the camera on television series. Jassy came at the tail-end of the Gainsborough years and was the first time the outfit had utilised Technicolor. It's a bit of a dog's breakfast all round, never really convincing in ANY genre it flirts with. Basil Sydney, stepping into a role that James Mason could have phoned in, gave no indication that within the year he would be turning in a fine Claudius opposite Olivier's Hamlet, Margaret Lockwood DOES phone in her titular role and Patricia Roc and Dermot Walsh make no real attempt to offer anything other than cardboard cutouts. It was apparently savaged by the critics but popular with the masses at the time; well, they HAD just been through a major war.

My comments are brief: Whoever owns the rights to distribute "Jassy" should get their butts in gear and release this colorfully stylish, wistful feature to DVD pronto! Americans (of which I am one) are generally (and shamelessly) content to glut themselves on Hollywood-based product (whether good or not), and continually ignore hallmarks of English cinema. "Jassy" (and "Blanche Fury", another jewel buried away in some vault) are overdue their chance to titillate new audiences and deserve to be released to DVD. Roan? Anchor Bay? Criterion Collection?HeloooOOOO!...