The scan­dalous fol­ly of Michael Winner’s The Wicked Lady

Despite being best known for Death Wish and its cen­sor-bait­ing sequel, and for becom­ing, in lat­er life, a boor­ish restau­rant crit­ic, Michael Win­ner was a ver­sa­tile direc­tor who pro­duced some seri­ous­ly enter­tain­ing films. This past year has seen the DVD release of his pre­vi­ous­ly unavail­able 1963 Lon­don crime dra­ma, West 11, as well as 1967’s Swing­ing Six­ties satire I’ll Nev­er For­get What’s’isname, star­ring Oliv­er Reed. Now his infa­mous 1983 remake The Wicked Lady makes its UK DVD debut.

This was a pas­sion project of Winner’s, who became a big fan of the orig­i­nal 1945 film, star­ring Mar­garet Lock­wood, when he saw it as a boy, but felt the pro­duc­tion was hide­bound by the stu­dio sets. Win­ner reworked Leslie Arliss’ orig­i­nal script, itself based on the nov­el by Mag­dalen King-Hall, the sup­posed true sto­ry of a 17^th cen­tu­ry noble­woman who became high­way rob­ber to revive the fam­i­ly fortune.

Win­ner updat­ed the film the only way he knew how – with sex and vio­lence: by the time the open­ing cred­its have rolled, the film has already earned its 18 rat­ing. We see a crow peck­ing the brains out of a corpse in a gib­bet, a man with a rope around his neck dragged across a field by a horse, and a naked cou­ple cop­u­lat­ing in a barn.

The tone is some­where between the rus­tic hor­ror of Witchfind­er Gen­er­al and the soft­core romp Young Lady Chat­ter­ly 2, with lav­ish cos­tumes and beau­ti­ful shots of hors­es thun­der­ing across the coun­try­side. The likes of John Giel­gud and Den­holm Elliot play it very straight, yet veer into over­wrought camp melo­dra­ma filled with appalling stunt work and, as was Winner’s pen­chant, nude women at every oppor­tu­ni­ty. Some­how, it all comes togeth­er to make for a delight­ful feature.

Faye Dun­away, unfair­ly nom­i­nat­ed for a Razz­ie for her lead role, is rather good as the rapa­cious, thrill-seek­ing Lady Skel­ton. Alan Bates gives a fiery per­for­mance as infa­mous high­way­man Jer­ry Jack­son – in a stand­out moment he deliv­ers a rous­ing speech in the shad­ow of the hangman’s noose. Nat­u­ral­ly, Win­ner under­cuts this stir­ring moment by fol­low­ing it with the film’s most infa­mous scene, in which Dun­away engages in a whip fight with a top­less Miri­na Sir­tis. It caused a stir with the cen­sors when the film hit cin­e­mas in 1983, but viewed today it’s noth­ing worse than you might see in an episode of Game of Thrones.

British beef­cake Oliv­er Tobias plays Dunaway’s love inter­est, sport­ing a series of is unin­ten­tion­al­ly hilar­i­ous over­sized hats (includ­ing one made of pink felt), and an ill-fit­ting wig. Win­ner has him indulge in a lengthy, orange hued fire­side love­mak­ing scene – which no doubt led to the BBFC describ­ing the film on its web­site as con­tain­ing nudi­ty, strong sex and ​“some thrust­ing and move­ment”. That’s less a warn­ing than a recommendation.

The Wicked Lady is released on DVD 4 July cour­tesy of Sec­ond Sight.