In 1980s The Cannon Group had reputation built around large number of cheap exploitation films. Its owners Menachem Golan and Yoram Globus occasionally tried something different and, preferably, more respectable. One of such attempts was an idea to remake stylish period melodrama that had honour of being one of the most popular and successful titles in history of 1940s British cinema. 1983 film The Wicked Lady, however, in the end became the most infamous title in the filmography of once promising director Michael Winner.
The film is based on the The Life and Death of Wicked Lady Skelton, novel by Magdalen King-Hall which was inspired by alleged criminal exploits of 17th Century English noblewoman Katherine Ferrers. The plot begins in 1680s rural England where wealthy landowner Sir Ralph Skelton (played by Denholm Elliott) is about to marry much younger woman named Caroline (played by Glynis Barber). Sir Ralph is gentle and kind-hearted man, so the marriage is supposed to be happy, but all this is shattered with an arrival of Caroline’s beautiful and manipulative sister Barbara (played by Faye Dunaway). She quickly seduces Ralph and convince him to marry her instead, while talking heart-broken Caroline into being her maid-of-honour at the wedding. Married life at the country estate, however, quickly starts to bore Barbara, but the rampant highway robbery around it ultimately gives her idea to find excitement. After losing precious brooch in a card game against her sister-in-law Henrietta (played by Prunella Scales), she decides to retrieve it by dressing up as highwayman and robbing her coach. She also meets legendary highwayman Captain Jerry Jackson (played by Alan Bates) who is amused to find his competitor to be a woman. Two of them quickly become partners and lovers, by their crime spree gradually increases odds of being caught and making Lady Skelton to commit increasingly vile deeds.
Original 1945 black-and-white version, directed by Leslie Arliss, had to be reshoot in order to be distributed on American market and adhere to strict censorship standards of Hollywood’s infamous Production Code. Decades later Michael Winner used much laxer standards to go into completely opposite direction. He used every opportunity to fill the film with as much scenes of nudity and sex as possible, which all culminated with its best known and most controversial scene in which Lady Skelton gets involved in whip fight with topless woman played by Marina Sirtis (who would later become famous as Counsellor Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation). On the other hand, Winner directs film very energetically and the pace is quick, allowing the plot and character exposition to fit into roughly hour and half of running time, while also delivering couple of interesting and sometimes semi-humorous action scenes. The acting, however, appears to belong to much serious film, which includes Elliott as embodiment of perfect country gentleman, Sir John Gielgud as Bible-thumping butler and even South African actress Glynis Barber does decent job in a thankless role that would have her character engaged in pointless and overlong sex scene (in which she is more than obviously replaced by a body double). Faye Dunaway, on the other hand, goes delightfully over the top as psychopathic villain, in an obvious attempt to make that character different from Milady De Winter she has played in The Three Muskeeters a decade earlier. Tony Banks, best known as keyboardist for Genesis, delivers soundtrack which tries to sound as much 1940s Hollywood soundtracks, which in the end leads to somewhat surreal effect at the edge of uninentional self-parody. However, despite those flaws The Wicked Lady provides solid entertainment for less demanding audience that enjoy Cannon films for they are rather than for they were supposed to be.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
Leofinance blog @drax.leo
Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax
Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc
Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
