Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Wicked Lady

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Scyther
    Senior Member

  • Wicked Lady, The



    Released by: Kino Lorber
    Released on: April 21st, 2015
    Directed by: Michael Winner
    Cast: Faye Dunaway, John Gielgud, Marina Sirtis
    Year: 1983
    Purchase from Amazon

    The Movie

    Leave it to Death Wish 3 director Michael Winner to sleaze up a period piece about highway robbery in the 17th century.

    The Wicked Lady was an early eighties production from the legendary Cannon Films, indicative of that company's tendency to take classic literature - see Curtis Harrington's production of Mata Hari or Just Jaeckin's Lady Chatterly's Lover - and insert the required sex and violence selling points. The end results, as such, are a mixed bag of stiff upper lip British pleasantries and unabashed T & A bawdiness.

    Indeed, director Michael Winner's penchant for the extreme is set on full display here in The Wicked Lady, and its tale of one Lady Barbara Skelton, a kept and bored woman who feels trapped in her marriage, seeking out adventure and excitement by joining up with the notorious highwayman, Jerry Jackson. Love, sex and political intrigue all make their way into the film's plot, but it all suffers from some hammy, over the top acting, particularly from Faye Dunaway in the title role.

    Dunaway's performance is hysterically bad here, hampered likely by an awkward script and a general distaste for the role. One moment coquettish, and like an over-the-top cartoon the next, there is no medium speed for Dunaway here: she's either relentlessly evil, or infuriatingly sly. Her character of Lady Skelton is certainly easy to hate here, so in this way her performance succeeds, but man... one can only take so much mugging.

    Elsewhere, the tonal shifts between prurient nudity and behind-the-scenes intrigue become jarring, and one finds this film fighting itself between the source material and a desire to spice things up a bit, most infamously the nude whipping scene between Dunaway and future Star Trek star Marina Sirtis. All of this makes sense, given Winner's reputation as somewhat a sleaze and sadist himself, although as a viewer this doesn't really make The Wicked Lady much fun to watch, other than to marvel at how awesomely awkward it all is, at the end.

    Video/Audio/Extras

    Kino Lorber and Scorpion Releasing have partnered to release this good looking, Region A Blu-Ray in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.85.1 widescreen. There's a healthy bit of grain to the print, with nicely rendered flesh tones - and there's a lot of flesh on display here, lemmy tell ya - and balanced audio mix in English LPCM format. A few flecks of dirt and debris to cross the screen here and there, but it's nothing that will mar anyone's viewing experience.

    Unfortunately, there are no extras, other than the film's original trailer. Sirtis had a bit to say about this film when interviewed for the Cannon Films documentary, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, so it would've been nice to hear more recollections about the film's apparently troubled production history from its stars. Sadly, Michael Winner left us a few years ago, as it would've been equally awesome to have had a commentary track from the director who gave us so many sleazy and violent epics over the years.

    The Final Word

    The Wicked Lady is a bit of bawdy fun, sure, but nothing that warrants a return trip or repeat viewings. If anything, it's a step back in time to when Cannon Films were throwing just about anything to the wall to see what would stick. Granted, the company were more hits than misses in this writer's opinion, but The Wicked Lady is just kind of a bust.


    Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!





















      Posting comments is disabled.

    Latest Articles

    Collapse

    • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Severin Films
      Released on: April 30th, 2024.
      Director: Lee Frost
      Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
      Year: 1969
      Purchase From Amazon

      Hot Spur – Movie Review:

      Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
    • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Mondo Macabro
      Released on: April 9th, 2024.
      Director: Max Pecas
      Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
      Year: 1985
      Purchase From Amazon

      Death Squad – Movie Review:

      Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
    • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Quality X
      Released on: February 28th, 2024.
      Director: Chuck Vincent
      Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
      Year: 1982
      Purchase From Amazon

      Roommates – Movie Review:

      Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
    • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Blue Underground
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Jess Franco
      Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
      Year: 1970
      Purchase From Amazon

      Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

      Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
    • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Saul Bass
      Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
      Year: 1974
      Purchase From Amazon

      Phase IV – Movie Review:

      Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
    • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Radiance Films
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
      Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
      Year: 1969-1972
      Purchase From Amazon

      The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

      Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
      ...
      03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
    Working...
    X