Wicked as They Come 1956

Katherine Allenborg, Arlene Dahl trades on her looks. She enters a beauty contest and charms the elderly organizer, Sam Lewis, David Kossoff into fixing it so she will win first prize, a trip to Europe. She promptly abandons Sam.

On a plane to London, after changing her name to Kathy Allen, she is attracted to Tim O’Bannion, Philip Carey who works for an ad agency. However, she is determined to land someone wealthier, and photographer Larry Buckham, Michael Goodliffe whom she meets at her London hotel, fits the bill. Invited to use his charge account at a department store for a wedding dress, Kathy makes many purchases, pawns the merchandise, and leaves Larry without a word.

She gets a job at Tim’s advertising firm and seduces Stephen Collins, Herbert Marshall the man who runs it, and who is married. Tim arouses passion in her, but Kathy is strictly out for herself. She demands that Collins divorce his wife Virginia Collins, Faith Brook whose father John Dowling owns the agency. Virginia tries to pay her off, but Kathy requests a transfer to the agency’s Paris headquarters, where she immediately uses her wiles to get Dowling to marry her.

Anonymous threats begin by mail and phone, and someone in the shadows begins stalking her. Kathy picks up a gun and shoots through the door, accidentally killing her husband. No one believes her tale of a prowler and Kathy is tried, convicted and sentenced to die.

Realising Larry Buckham is the prowler, Tim reveals to him something he has only just discovered, an explanation for Kathy’s cold treatment of men: when she was a teenager, she was brutally assaulted. Larry has a change of heart and confesses to stalking her. Kathy’s prison sentence is reduced, and she hopes Tim will give her another chance once she gets out.