I have the strangest feeling that The Lady and the Highwayman, apart from obvious direct comparisons to Robin Hood, was an attempt to bring back the spirit of the old classic "The Adventures of Robin Hood" that starred Erryl Flynn, Olivia DeHavilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains. The feeling is strange in that, in almost every respect, that is what this film utterly fails to do. But I do think that they at least tried.

Set amid the backdrop of rural England under the brief rule of Oliver Cromwell and then King Charles II, The Lady and the Highwayman stars a host of well-known British actors. Michael York (Logan's Run) plays the King, who entrusts an important mission to the gallant Lord Lucius Vyne (well okay I guess you'd have to be gallant with that name or you'd have no chance...). After Charles regains the throne, however, Lucius recognises the need for work to be done that the king could not do openly – so in the guise of a highwayman and at the cost of his liberty, he does it himself. In the course of this noble but illegal do-gooding as the "Silver Blade", he rescues his distant cousin Lady Panthea Vyne (with a name like that she needed to be sweet and good-looking to have a chance...), who unbeknownst to her is not only her cousin but also the rightful Duke after her brother died. Of course she wants to find out the Silver Blade's true identity, and he finds himself strangely attracted to her.

But of course, there are also bad guys, this time in the guise of the King's mistress Barbara Castlemaine (Emma Samms), who is not impressed by the King getting married nor by her new rival for the court's affections, Panthea. Her former lover (she's had a lot of them) and wannabe Duke, Rudolf Vyne (another cousin) scheme to have Lucius declared dead and thus clear the way for Rudolf to inherit the Dukedom, ruin Panthea, get the Silver Blade arrested, and all sorts of nasty things like that.

This was a made for TV movie and it shows. It bears all the hallmarks being straight to video and resembles in many ways a soap opera; bad acting, extremely contrived plot devices, a shaky plot, etc. The fight choreography has to be mentioned – enemies crouch for no apparent reason so they can be hit on the head, others double up in pain long before the blow is even administered, etc. The whole thing reeks an absolute lack of class. Well that's not entirely true – Oliver Reed stars as Sir Phillip Gage, the Solicitor General, and easily outshines the rest of the cast, while small roles are taken with aplomb by Sir John Mills and Robert Morely. Grant is an actor I know many despise, but I like his performances in romantic comedies – particularly About A Boy and Notting Hill - and it was interesting here to see him playing a gallant noble rather than his normal rather caddish character, but the more serious style didn't really suit him. He came off more Tom Cruise cheesy than Erryl Flynn debonair and eccentric. Lysette Anthony as Panthea and Christopher Cazenove as Rudolph did ok, York was on the whole fine, and the cinematography occasionally showed promise. The musical score was slightly uninspiring, some of the dialogue was pretty atrocious, and the plot really cold have used some work.

Despite its many faults I nearly gave this 3 stars as it is sort of strangely fun in a quirky, indefinable way. I've slapped a 2-star rating on it though as it really is bad enough to deserve it!

Our DVD copy (no extras apart from scene selection) cost 97 pence from Tescos, so I'm not too upset about it anyway!! :-D Could be worth watching simply for the novelty value.

In case you're interested, The Lady and the Highwayman was made 1989.


Related Links

Hugh Grant: About A Boy
Ollie Reed: Gladiator

A quality made-for-TV movie (yes there are some around!): Cheyene Warrior starring Kelly Preston.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above