“According to Kinematograph Weekly, the film was a ‘money maker’ at the British box office in 1955.^[8] However, Dirk Bogarde said “The film was a failure”:-

‘It was the first time I had come under another star’s name – Margaret Lockwood – and it just died, which was a pity because it was a very good movie, and I had persuaded Maggie to do it. I remember being on tour in Cardiff with a play and I saw a poster for Cast a Dark Shadow, it had ‘Dirk Bogarde in Cast a Dark Shadow‘ and, at the very bottom, ‘with Margaret Lockwood’. They altered the billing order because they saw it was dying and that, astoundingly, her name had killed it, though it was probably her best performance ever’.^[7]

Lewis Gilbert later said, ‘It was reasonably successful but by then Margaret [Lockwood] had been in several bad films and her name on a picture was rather counter-productive.’^[4] He said she got “wonderful notices” but it was “too late for her. She’d already lost her audience. The film just scraped home, we just made a profit.”^[9]

‘I’m glad I did it, but am still wondering exactly where it got me’, said Lockwood in 1973 (after making the movie, she did not appear in a feature film for another 21 years).

Monthly Film Bulletin wrote “This is an old-fashioned and thorough-going melodrama, adapted from the stage and retaining – notably in the big scene in which Bare confronts his victim’s sister – a decidedly theatrical flavour. It is conventionally but competently managed, achieving an occasional note of the authentically squalid and shabby in developing Bare’s dealings with the three women. Although built up largely through mannerisms, Margaret Lockwood’s performance as the retired barmaid has considerable spirit.”^[10]“