The Wicked Lady

Faye Dunaway was 42 when she starred in this as the young ingenue's sister (or friend?). Age 42 in the 1600's was elderly and the woman Dunaway's character was based on died at the age of 26. Of course, extensive face lifts hadn't been invented yet. Similarly, Alan Bates was 50 when this was filmed - so at least in the same age bracket as Dunaway. These were roles were meant for young people so it's jarring to see Dunaway's blurred close ups. The nudity was puerile and unnecessary.

Back in the day of 1983, I was 22 and really did not care about quality in movies like I do now at 60. There is a place for cheesy movies or drive in movies, but Cannon chose to skip and save on each budget to hoped to fund their next idiot production of knock off movies. I caught Wicked Lady 1983 for the first and final time after doing a Faye Dunaway search. When I saw the other movies were Cannon, I did not expect much. A period movie with customs was nice, but cannot compare to Richard Lester the 3 and 4 Musketeers and see for yourself the difference in quality. In defense of Michael Winner, he was a mans man director, meaning his style worked best with men who were stage actors and needed little or no direction, they could improvise out on rugged locations. Chato's Land a release by United Artist.

Micheal Winner and the illustrious cast take the money and phone in the performances of this classic.

The direction is basic. The acting is 'scenery chewing in extremis', every single one bar Glynis Barber is terrible. Gielgud is clearly trading on his name at this point. Dunaway is Crawfordtastic.

The costumes and sets might be acceptable, but the editing, cinematography and direction are at times laughable.

We should expect this to be the subject of the, 'How Did This Get Made' podcast in the near future.

The spontaneous and gratuitous nudity is surely there just to keep some members of the audience awake.

Heavy handed adventure with Faye (who followed up Mommie Dearest with this) robbing stage coaches in full period costume. The production is pretty decent, as is the cast, but the film is so woefully over-the-top that you just want to slap director Michael Winner sometimes. What could have been. And that nudity thrown in for no apparent reason is absurd. The scene where Faye whips the clothes off the wife of her lover at his funeral is classic camp, however. Best performance is given by Denholm Elliott, who plays Faye's put-upon husband. This is in the same league as the even more preposterous Mata-Hari...which even shares co-star Oliver Tobias! This one is good for a few laughs.

Having viewed the original version several times, I thought it was great to have a modern up-dated 'Wicked Lady'. I had seen several other of Michael Winner's films, and though not a great fan of his, I found them entertaining. I was even more interested in the production when I was accepted as an extra for the filming of the sequences filmed on White Edge Moor in Derbyshire. It was an experience to say the least, but I did think the completion of the film would be much better, and even though I witnessed the nudity 'first hand', I wondered what all the publicity at the time was about! I viewed it on video just about a year after it was released, and again two weeks ago. I wish now that I had refused to accept my £40 payment, because it lacked everything, except me!