Before the memory of the immortal and incomparable James Mason is lost, his final performance must be made available to the public.
This cynical, oftentimes quite funny tale is set in the city where author Graham Greene made his home. Greene was an Anglo-Catholic and a communist both at once. No surprise his novels present moral dilemmas--even those he modestly labeled "entertainments". Many Graham Greene novels have been successfully filmed--too many to list here. This one is about a fabulously wealthy and reclusive businessman who enjoys playing mind games with various members of the upper class--dangling rich gifts before them but making them go through humiliating rituals to obtain them.
His butler, played with comic brilliance by stage actor Nicholas Le Prevost, is a liveried ruffian apparently hired for his ability to turn away visitors so rudely they won't come back.
But the doctor has a soft spot: a beautiful daughter with none of Fischer's bitterness or contempt for humanity. And thereby hangs the tale...
It's a role seemingly made for the world-weary James Mason, himself a resident of Geneva (Switzerland) at the time of his death.
This cynical, oftentimes quite funny tale is set in the city where author Graham Greene made his home. Greene was an Anglo-Catholic and a communist both at once. No surprise his novels present moral dilemmas--even those he modestly labeled "entertainments". Many Graham Greene novels have been successfully filmed--too many to list here. This one is about a fabulously wealthy and reclusive businessman who enjoys playing mind games with various members of the upper class--dangling rich gifts before them but making them go through humiliating rituals to obtain them.
His butler, played with comic brilliance by stage actor Nicholas Le Prevost, is a liveried ruffian apparently hired for his ability to turn away visitors so rudely they won't come back.
But the doctor has a soft spot: a beautiful daughter with none of Fischer's bitterness or contempt for humanity. And thereby hangs the tale...
It's a role seemingly made for the world-weary James Mason, himself a resident of Geneva (Switzerland) at the time of his death.