This Michael Winner-directed remake of the 1945 film of the same name, starring Margaret Lockwood and James Mason (one of the popular Gainsborough melodramas), related the story of female highwayman (highwaywoman) Lady Barbara Skelton during the Restoration era.
In the lead role, Faye Dunaway produced a tour de force of overacting as the 17th-century hussy who led a double life as a châtelaine and highway robber (she was nominated for a Razzie for her performance).
Critic John Walker wrote at the time, “In repose, Dunaway’s face has a sculptural beauty – or would have if it were ever in repose. Even such natural activity as breathing now occasions in her a virtuoso display of over-acting. Her eyebrows quiver, her eyes pop, her nostrils dilate, and the skin over her cheekbones tightens. When she actually utters a line, it is as if battalions of signallers have gone simultaneously berserk and are semaphoring delirious messages”.
It is obvious that Lady Barbara is a bad lot as soon as you set eyes on her.
She comes to visit her virginal old chum Caroline (Glynis Barber), seduces her fiancé and takes her place at the altar. At the nuptial festivities, she falls in love with handsome Kit Locksby (Oliver Tobias) and spurns the attentions of her new husband (Denholm Elliott).
She meets the notorious highwayman, Captain Jerry Jackson (Alan Bates), while on one of her nocturnal robbing adventures, and he sets her pulse racing when he lays his hands on her in his room at the Leaping Stag Inn.
She betrays him later and is there to watch him dangle at Tyburn.
Winner managed to generate some interest in the film by having future Star Trek: The Next Generationstar Marina Sirtis (in her movie debut) have her clothes ripped off by Dunaway in a controversial whipping scene.
Shapely Glynis Barber has her fancies trifled with by Oliver Tobias, but the breasts which Arthur of the Britons caresses are not those of Ms Barber, who had stipulated in her contract that she would not play the nude scene (hence her bosom belongs to a body double).
At times, there are so many bare boobs bobbling about that it looks like a suet pudding factory on overtime.
In fact, every time anyone opens a door, naked wenches tumble out and incur the wrath of Lady Skelton’s puritanical head servant Hogarth (Sir John Gielgud). It’s a daft film.
Much of the film was shot at Compton Wynyates, the Warwickshire Tudor pile of Lord and Lady Northampton.
Lady Barbara Skelton
Faye Dunaway Captain Jerry Jackson
Alan Bates Hogarth
Sir John Gielgud Sir Ralph Skelton
Denholm Elliott Lady Kingsclere
Prunella Scales Lord Kingsclere
Derek Francis Kit Locksby
Oliver Tobias Caroline
Glynis Barber Aunt Agatha
Joan Hickson Moll Skelton
Helena McCarthy Doll Skelton
Mollie Maureen Jackson’s Girl
Marina Sirtis Ned Cotterell
Nicholas Gecks Ned’s Wife
Glynis Brooks Uncle Martin
Hugh Millais Squire Thornton
John Savident Lord Marwood
Dermot Walsh Lord Dolman
Marc Sinden King Charles II
Mark Burns Nell Gwynne
Teresa Codling Mrs Munce
Ellen Pollock
Director
Michael Winner
Video
You May Also Like
Blade on the Feather (1980) This made-for-television spy drama - shot on location on the Isle of Wight and broadcast on…
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) Two great influences on 1960s film combined in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: the story came from…
Liquidator, The (1966) Former tank sergeant Boysie Oakes (Rod Taylor) - codenamed "L" - is a reluctant secret agent…
Nightcomers, The (1971) Based on the chilling classic The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (filmed as The Innocents in…
Mississippi Burning (1988) Feisty British director Alan Parker takes on the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi Burning as two white FBI…
Carry On Cruising (1962) The first Carry On movie to be filmed in colour and the last written by Norman Hudis,…
Unman, Wittering and Zigo (1971) David Hemmings is excellent in this gripping thriller from John Mackenzie (The Long Good Friday) as John Ebony,…
Critic John Walker wrote at the time, “In repose, Dunaway’s face has a sculptural beauty – or would have if it were ever in repose. Even such natural activity as breathing now occasions in her a virtuoso display of over-acting. Her eyebrows quiver, her eyes pop, her nostrils dilate, and the skin over her cheekbones tightens. When she actually utters a line, it is as if battalions of signallers have gone simultaneously berserk and are semaphoring delirious messages”.
She meets the notorious highwayman, Captain Jerry Jackson (Alan Bates), while on one of her nocturnal robbing adventures, and he sets her pulse racing when he lays his hands on her in his room at the Leaping Stag Inn.
At times, there are so many bare boobs bobbling about that it looks like a suet pudding factory on overtime.
