Root of All Evil (1947)Phyllis Calvert is excellent as the independent and head-strong young lady Jeckie Farnish (I spent the entire film wondering whether it was 'Jackie' and people just pronounced it weird, or it really was 'Jeckie' and yes, she's Jeckie with an E) that this film centres on; who has one heck of a time. Her family is really poor and end up having to sell everything and move into a workhouse. Including the sweet little miniature collie, which is really sad. (Trust me) And the only light in her life is her fiance, but then when he goes on holiday and marries his cousin whilst away, she's at her wit's end. But our gal Jeckie (with an E)ain't gonna be licked, so she actually sues her ex-fiance and his family for emotional damages, and gets £1500 out of it, which she uses to start her own store - directly across the street from her ex-fiance's family's grocery store. Pretty shifty! Naturally, she ends up stealing all their business and has a thriving success with her store, but you begin to notice she's getting a little money hungry, and suddenly the title (Root Of All Evil) begins to make sense. So when this bloke Mortimer comes along and tells her there's oil under their town, she goes into a plan with him to start an industry. But the land it's on is owned by a crotchety old man, it's not Jeckie or Mortimer's land. She eventually manages to buy the land from him for £550, while he doesn't know why she wants it; it's all stony and unusable, and his wife is just happy to get rid of it and have some cash!
After the oil has been mined, she's all rich and living in the big house and making money like nobody's business, and the man that she *legitimately* bought the land from gets a bit p***ed off, accusing her of swindling him, and so he does the mature thing, and sets fire to the whole refinery. Poor Jeckie stands to lose everything, but perhaps she's starting to learn that everything isn't really 'everything'.
Betrayed (1954)
