The White Unicorn: a “tale of babies, boudoirs, lingerie, misunderstanding husbands”

While Gainsborough dominated the British melodrama scene during the mid-1940s with its hugely successful period romps, other producers soon attempted to cash in on the ‘weepstakes’.

One such was John Corfield, who was canny enough to realise that the vital ingredient for a successful women’s picture was Margaret Lockwood, raven-haired bad girl of the costume film and voted by the fans as Britain’s favourite star of 1946. Corfield exploited her fame for wickedness in the 1946 film Bedelia, in which she played a serial killer who disposed of several husbands. His next subject for her was an adaptation of the 1946 novel The Milk-White Unicorn by Flora Sandstrom (the pen name of Lady Cochrane).

This was to be an overwrought tear-jerker in which Lockwood again gets through several marriages, though they are ended by fate rather than sinister means. Filming began under the novel’s title in mid-April 1947, though by June it had become just The White Unicorn.

Lockwood plays Lucy Glover, a modern woman sporting the New Look. In an attempt to provide escape from post-war austerity, no expense was spared with her costumes, which were designed by Swiss fashion designer Mattli, with hairstyles specially created to complement each one. The striking up-to-the-minute outfits were adorned with real jewels reportedly worth £40,000, which Corfield borrowed from Bond Street jeweller Keith Drayson. This focus on clothes would be, according to the producer “a nice filip to our fashion export trade”.

But perhaps in a nod to Lockwood’s more familiar screen image, The White Unicorn stages a lavish fancy dress party. In this scene she wears a “gown of delicate dawn pink ninon over stiffened organdie” adorned with pearls and tulle and topped off with an extravagant wig.

The film opened in mid-October and critics didn’t hesitate to label it a ‘women’s picture’, Jympson Harman calling on “shop girls and lonely wives…to forget those dirty dishes… that empty coal cellar” and witness its “tale of babies, boudoirs, lingerie, misunderstanding husbands… of happiness grasped and lost”.

Particularly striking are the scenes of Lucy’s honeymoon with second husband Richard (Dennis Price). The couple go to Finland (though the location shots were actually taken in Lillehammer, Norway) where they soak up the local traditions, including Lucy’s nude massage from a robust local who gently thrashes her with twigs. All the crew apart from director Bernard Knowles and the camera team left the set at Twickenham Studios for the filming of this intimate scene; it was possibly the cause of Lockwood’s two-week absence with influenza, which set back the schedule considerably.

While Lucy lacks the ambition and agency of some of Lockwood’s more full-blooded characters, the tragedies she endures give plenty of scope for emoting. After her second husband dies in an accident, she becomes governess of a remand home, where she encounters Lottie, a waif from the slums awaiting trial for attempted infanticide. Lottie is played by Joan Greenwood, another in a series of roles that saw the actress seriously miscast; thankfully, her next film, Ealing’s Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), heralded a period when that studio created a more suitable niche for her considerable talents.

One critic summed up the film’s convoluted plot thus: “Joan Greenwood and that nice Miss Lockwood fling flashbacks at each other about how they both lost babies and Miss Lockwood lost a couple of husbands as well.” Lottie’s character does bring to the film something of the sordidness of the Gainsborough melodramas, including a cat fight between her and another inmate, played by Joan Rees. The Daily Mirror printed a photo feature about the filming of this scene, revealing that it was choreographed by all-in wrestler Paddy Branigan, who ensured that the two actresses staged a convincing scrap. 

He clearly did a good job as the scene provoked some complaints about the amount of violence creeping into British films. The Evening News was particularly indignant about the general decline in the morals of the domestic cinema, describing the bout as “The most violent fight between women ever filmed” and declaring “I am sickened by the sight of these brutal scenes and I think it is high time the censor took a hand.”

Critics generally found Greenwood’s story more compelling than Lockwood’s and felt that she deserved more screen time, though recognised that the star’s presence was the film’s main selling point. Despite the glimpses of Lottie’s working-class life, the film has no interest in social realism and, with her plummy accent, she is hardly convincing. The film certainly makes no plea for changes to improve the lot of the poor.

Cuts had had to be made for the American censors: as with the Gainsborough melodramas, they balked at the amount of Lockwood’s cleavage on show. There were also reservations about her nudity on the massage table and references to abortion. The film eventually opened there on 10 June 1948 under the baffling title ‘Bad Sister’, and was largely dismissed as a soap opera: resolutely low-brow and suitable only for undiscriminating audiences.

Yet beyond the sensational plot, ravishing costumes and tasteful décor, the story presents an interesting reflection on post-war womanhood. While some wrote off Lockwood’s character as demure and dull, that is to ignore her drive to take control of her own destiny. Rejecting her undemonstrative husband, she finds love, but, when it’s cruelly taken away from her, she grasps independence and realises that there can be meaning to life beyond the confines of domesticity. Lottie is denied love and affection as a child and craves it to such a degree that it almost leads to a dreadful fate from which only another woman can save her.

These two women want more than wartime society offers them. They want to make their own choices, their own mistakes. They both demand the right to be loved, and the right to protest when they suffer the consequences that love can bring.

The White Unicorn can be viewed via the BFI’s research viewing service.

Madness of the Heart, another Lockwood/Sandstrom collaboration from 1949 is free to view on BFI Player.