The Wicked Lady, 1983.
Directed by Michael Winner.
Starring Faye Dunaway, Denholm Elliott, Alan Bates, John Gielgud, Glynis Barber, Oliver Tobias, Joan Hickson and Prunella Scales.
SYNOPSIS:
A woman marries into high society after stealing her sister’s fiancé but becomes bored with country life so she turns to highway robbery to get her kicks.
If you caught the Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films documentary from a couple of years back you may remember a sizeable section devoted to 1983’s The Wicked Lady. It may seem odd that a production company like Cannon – mostly known for action, martial arts and horror B-movies such as American Ninja, Invasion U.S.A. and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 – would delve into a period drama remake of a 1945 film but this was no ordinary period piece as The Wicked Lady was adapted and directed by Michael Winner, fresh from his success with the controversial Death Wish II and raring to update a film that was a childhood favourite of his.
With the backing of Cannon head honchos Menahem Golan and Yoram Golas, and his status as a provocative filmmaker cemented, Winner set about retelling this famous 18th century folklore tale but with an eye for the wicked part of the title, injecting the story with a healthy dose of sex and violence that should appeal to the type of audience that soak up anything from the Cannon Films stable. Faye Dunaway (Network) stars as Barbara, who has been invited to her sister Caroline’s wedding to nobleman Sir Ralph Skelton (Denholm Elliott – Raiders of the Lost Ark). When Barbara arrives at Skelton’s country mansion he is immediately smitten and he decides to marry Barbara instead of Caroline (Glynis Barber – Dempsey & Makepeace), but once Barbara becomes Lady Skelton she immediately sets her sights on a life more exciting than hanging around the countryside and being the object of Ralph’s sister Henrietta (Prunella Scales – Fawlty Towers) and her husband’s sly comments.
Having lost a valuable piece of jewellery to Henrietta in a card game, Barbara dresses as infamous highwayman Jerry Jackson and robs Henrietta’s stagecoach to get the jewel back, and once she has the feel for highway robbery it becomes a regular thing, until she bumps into the real Jerry Jackson (Alan Bates – Zorba the Greek) and they hook up, professionally and personally. But as the robberies pile up and the various characters swap beds with each other it is only a matter of time before Barbara’s wicked ways catch up with her.
Released uncut on DVD for the first time in the UK, The Wicked Lady is delightfully trashy, with naked breasts being shown every ten minutes and the kind of dialogue that would make any real 18th century nobleman wince so anybody unfamiliar with Michael Winner’s way of pushing people’s buttons when it came to sex and nudity and expecting a serious period drama may be a little bit surprised at the amount of fireside romps and whipped breasts that Winner threw in. Probably the most surprised was Faye Dunaway, fresh from making Mommie Dearest and having turned down a TV version of King Lear to appear in this, who turns in a performance that feels more like an audition for her part in Supergirl soon after, playing it just a little bit too arch and dishing out the death stares like she was in an 18th century-set Scanners movie. Other performances are all pretty on the nose but the best are Denholm Elliott as Skelton and John Gielgud as Skelton’s servant Hogarth who can see everything that is going on and always has a thoroughly disapproving Biblical quote ready to put people in their place.
As far as entertainment goes The Wicked Lady is fun in the same way that many of the films that emerged from Cannon Films around that time were fun but that didn’t necessarily mean they were any good. The story itself is fairly strong, even if the dialogue is fairly ropey in some places, but Winner goes so overboard with the sleaze that by the time you get to the whip fight between Barbara and a topless wench near the end of the film you’ve become so desensitized to it that laughter is the only reaction that seems suitable. Nevertheless, it zips along at a fair pace and, despite running out of steam about 15 minutes before the actual end of the film, it’s never boring but whether that’s enough to recommend it is debatable.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
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