Michael Winner.

Oh, Michael Winner.

He called the film "Bonnie and Clyde in the 17th century" and sure, I guess it is, but it's also filtered through the lens of, you know, Michael Winner.

And Faye Dunaway, the star of this movie agreed, saying "I really feel it will be a fun picture. A period romp, it's a mixture between Bonnie and Clyde and Tom Jones." She also claimed that it was "the only film I've ever enjoyed making," but hey, she was coming off Mommie Dearest, a movie that she found "harrowing" and critics destroyed.

Cannon sealed the dea by purchasing a film that Dunaway and her husband - and Winner's friend - Terry O'Neill had wanted to make, Duet for One, which Cannon would still make with neither involved.

As for Cannon head Menahem Golan, well it all came down to money. "Stars who would never have worked with us before are now happy to sign. We pay them peanuts - but we give them big percentages. Faye, Alan and John were happy to sign for The Wicked Lady because they have 50% of the film. And we have small overheads, so they'll get their money."

Caroline (Glynis Barber) is about to be married, so she invites her sister Barbara (Dunaway) to be her maid of honor, but within seconds she's scooped up Caroline's man, Sir Ralph Skelton (Denholm Elliott). But money don't matter tonight. She wants the thrill, so she soon hooks up with a highway robber Jerry Jackson (Alan Bates) and starts alternately having rough sex with him when she isn't stealing from the very upper crust that she's part of.

Of course, she also has a whip fight with future Deanna Troi Marina Sirtis that so upset British censors that they demanded it be removed. Winner refused to cut the notorious sequence, gathering luminaries such as Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz and John Schlesinger, as well as author Kingsley Amis to defend his movie. And it worked!

None of these folks had seen Winner personally cutting Sirits' costume with scissors to ensure the most skin possible.

But hey, it was Winner's dream to make this movie since he was a kid, as he'd loved the 1945 original but thought it needed more than to be set in a studio. He probably also wanted more woman on woman whip violence.

In the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, Sirtis would say that she felt that this movie could have been Winner's grab for respectability , but then he wanted so many nude women in the film.

This is the kind of movie that Sir John Gielgud picked after winning a Best Supporting Oscar for Arthur. That said - it did seem like it had some class. Some. And Winner would shoot it with cinematographer Jack Cardiff, who upset Dunaway at one point because of a camera angle issue. Cardiff got mad and demanded that Winner fire her, but Winner told him that Dunaway was the lead. So he sucked it up and made the movie. I mean, this is the man who shot The Red Shoes, The African Queen, Ghost Story and directed The Freakmaker. More class? How about a soundtrack by Tony Banks from Genesis? No?

So close to the original that that film's writer Leslie Arliss is credited as a writer, this all starts over losing a brooch in a bet and turns into a life of crime. And by crime, I mean killing villagers and both poisoning and suffocating Gielgud, who is Rasputin-like in his ability to stay alive. There's also a public hanging that - spoiler - Jackson survives, only to be murdered moments later by our female antagonist. And then she gets her heart broken.

Dunaway joked about making a sequel - Daughter of Wicked Lady - in which she would be an older and wiser Lady Barbara Skelton, who is raising a wicked daughter.

I'd watch that.

Spoiled Lady Skelton impersonates a notorious highway robber on horseback in the English countryside of the 17th century. It wasn't a bad idea for Michael Winner to stage a remake of Leslie Arliss' rollicking British adventure "The Wicked Lady" from 1945; Arliss' screenplay (credited here, along with Winner and others) was, after all, a tightly-wound and ingenious bit of sinful charade mixed with costume camp. But camp takes over in Winner's version, updated with bare bosoms and humping couples, while his star--the inimitable Faye Dunaway--is appropriately cast but coarse in the lead. Dunaway sports a whopper crop of hair and looks right in the flouncy attire, but she's manic and wild-eyed when all she needs to be is cruelly seductive (perhaps the ghost of "Mommie Dearest" was still dogging her?). Elsewhere, a British cast of elderly veterans and inept newcomers attempt to make the most of a wan situation, but Winner is too hasty in his pacing to allow anyone to carve out a genuine character. Either Winner or his producers (the un-esteemed Golan and Globus) were curiously obsessed with undressed wenches, though not even a whip-snapping catfight (lifted from Leslie Arliss' 1948 film "Idol of Paris") can breathe life into the tired, mangy final act. Cinematographer Jack Cardiff gets some nice shots of the evening sky, but his interiors are dreadful looking. Most of the nighttime heist action was obviously filmed in the daylight with a dark filter, causing even the story's high moments to look shabby. What a waste of an opportunity! * from ****

It is sad when you see great actors in a bad film. Even worse when they appear in a awful film. So is this terrible remake of a good B&W movie from the 40's.

I tried to find something good about this movie but there is nothing that comes to mind. There are some good outdoor scenes in the film but there are supposed actors in the way and most scenery is being blocked.

Faye Dunaway maybe a fine actress but in this movie she comes across as a unamused cartoon character. Who ever told her to take this part should be fired or possibly whipped as was a scene in the movie. At the end of the movie, Faye has a death scene that is comical. First she is shot and bleeding- so what does she do- puts on a white night dress and gets into bed. All this does is to make the blood stand out while she goes into a "'woe-is-me' death talk. By this time we are pulling for death to come, and come quickly. Anything to relieve us of the misery from watching her performance.

The producers of this movie must have known this was going to be a flop so they throw in nudity in the hopes of catching the younger crowd. In fact when the action of the film slows someone is taking off their top or having their clothes ripped off. And none of the nudity adds anything to the plot just makes it more sad.

All the breasts in the world could not help this film. Skip this terrible film and watch TV. Your time will be better spent.