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Sherwood said everyone hated the rape scene except Winner


Robin Sherwood was unhappy with the way her rape scene was presented.

She said in an interview, “Michael Winner made his point, and he did it well, and then he took it to this level that was very graphic. It just went too far, it was gratuitous. I really was upset about it and Charlie [Bronson] was pretty upset about it, too. [He felt] it was too graphic. We were at a restaurant and [the distributor was] saying that they wanted to really cut down the rape scene for an American audience and Michael Winner was very upset about it. He said [to me], 'This is really going to limit your role.' But, quite frankly, I could have done with much, much less. But as an actress, I had no control over that."

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Well, the original film was heavily imitated throughout the 1970s, often by exploitation films that were able to push things far further than a major studio picture like Death Wish. The more extreme elements in the sequel come across as Winner reminding the world that he was still boss man when it came to nasty rape revenge movies.

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Knowing what we now know about Hollywood I’m pretty confident that Michael Winner was similar to Dan Schneider in that he used these films as a way to act out his personal fantasies. I mean he was dating Robin Sherwood (an issue all on its own). He probably got off on watching her get man-handled.

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By “pretty confident” you mean you’re taking a wild guess?

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Let’s call it an edumacated guess.

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Works for me. 👍

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