EVERYONE'S A WINNER

I am a bit disappointed not to get a last minute invitation to Sir Michael Winner’s  wedding. I was also dismayed that no public holiday was granted in celebration of the nuptials. It’s the first time up the aisle for the veteran film director and restaurateur, emerging pyjama clad from a string of high profile dalliances and having recovered from a very nasty medical experience.

One had always hoped Michael would pledge his troth to Jenny Seagrove. I once sighted them together at interval time, breathing the warm London air on Charing Cross Road, midway through Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing. I’m sure Jenny remains A Woman of Substance, but I will remember her best as the evil nanny, Camilla, in The Guardian (the film, not the newspaper), bent on infanticide in league with killing trees in William Friedkin’s worst ever cinematic offering.  The two parted, (not because of the evil  trees)  Jenny ending  up with theatre impresario and Everton overlord Bill Kenwright.  The new Mrs Winner is no blushing nymphette, but Geraldine Lynton-Edwards, a sprightly 71.

Winner’s adventures in restaurant land and advertising have been mildly diverting, but have latterly overshadowed his many onscreen triumphs, surely worthy of a BFI retrospective, ideally before he pops his clogs. Most Winnerphiles, while noting earlier classics like Some Like it Cool  (Winner does naturism – don’t go there), fall over themselves to pour praise on the Charles Bronson Death Wish franchise, awash with no excuses homicide, judicious revenge and the occasional gang-rape. Death Wish II comes with the added bonus of a killer Jimmy Page sound-track. Ground-breaking, fearless and ahead of the curve these mighty films all were, but latter Winner is equally rich and tasty, although the critics have never quite go it.  Parting Shots, featuring north-eastern rock star Chris Rea as terminally ill (but not really) muso going on killing spree, found little favour with Total Film: “This is film-making at its cheapest, at its nastiest, and its most self-indulgent. Ignore it – hopefully it’ll quickly go away”. Bullseye! brought Michael Caine together with Roger Moore in a jolly romp about conmen, aided and abetted by the always classy Patsy Kensit and a much maligned John Cleese, but was judged by one Winner-baiter (get Bronson on the case) as “an unsightly wart on the face of cinema”.

Pride of place for me will always go to Dirty Weekend, loosely adapted, or ‘Winnerised’ from Helen Zahavi’s cult novel. Set in Brighton, it features Lia Williams as Bella, a frumpy doormat given a mystic makeover by Ian Richardson and let loose on the seafront as a femme very fatale. She rapidly sees off neighbouring pervert Rufus Sewell (hammered to death), lecherous dentist David McCallum (run over with his own car after an oral sex session he probably regretted) and an extremely fat man called Norman (post-coital bag over the head). A gun come into play later as Lea finds the Sussex constabulary a bit off the pace in dealing with predators and psychos. Never mind the rest of Winner’s oeuvre; this was surely Sir Michael’s pass key to the pantheon.