House of Whipcord

Pete Walker opens the film with a straight-faced dedication to everyone who longs for the return of flogging and hanging, then spends ninety minutes showing them exactly what they are asking for. A French model is lured to a remote house that turns out to be an illegal private prison, run by a blind former governess and a doddering ex-judge who abduct 'immoral' young women and sentence them to the cane and the noose. Scripted by David McGillivray as a deliberate kick at the Mary Whitehouse clean-up brigade, it is British sleaze with a real argument under it, and it withholds the last-reel rescue you keep waiting for. Sheila Keith, as the wardress who enjoys her work, gives the performance that made her Walker's secret weapon. Nastier and smarter than its grubby packaging promised, and the best door into Walker's stuff.