Robert J. Maxwell Charles Dance plays the greedy, suave, lying cad. He's a marvelous actor. His features are handsome in an oddly distant way and his hooded eyes are the color of that watery blue you can sometimes see deep in the interior of glaciers. God, is he rotten. He was rotten in "China Moon," too, but in the less demanding part of a drunken wife beater in a trashy movie.The point of the story is made clear in the first few minutes. It's 1940 and London is being bombed. After a roll in the hay, rich Greta Scacchi and her paramour, rich Hugh Grant, must take shelter in the underground, and they are two lovely, fashionably groomed people, amid the sweaty crowd of mothers and children. The milieu doesn't stop them from making out. The simply ignore the misery around them.Scacchi is married to Joss Ackland, older, rich, and satisfied with only looking at his wife when she's naked. (She's magnificent, with or without clothes.) But he's in financial trouble. His vast country estate is in jeopardy and he takes his wife to Kenya to see to his far-flung cattle empire.Kenya, they find, is loaded with other rich white Englanders who pride themselves on the produce they ship to England during the time of her troubles. The fact that their patriotism enables them to take baths in pound notes doesn't occur to them.What does occur to them is to get laid as frequently as possible and with diverse partners. Charles Dance, the cad, quickly seduces the stunning Scacchi and they exchange vows of love. Everyone in "the colony" knows all about it. Dance does everything but roger her on the pool table at noon. But does Dance really mean it? He's been married twice before, both times to rich women, and shrugged them off. Now he seems intent on winning Scacchi and her substantial divorce agreement away from Ackland. Ackland, now humiliated and feeling Scacchi's increasing estrangement, hints that maybe he won't honor the pre-nup that assured her of a lifetime income. Clouds of antipathy darken the savannah. The cattle grow restless.If Dance is a suave cad, we can't be sure about Scacchi either. As they lie in bed, planning to run off together, she says, "But we haven't any money." "Well, there's my Army salary." And she turns from him to flick ashes from her cigarette and replies, "Yes," in the most unenthusiastic tones ever committed to celluloid.The photography, wardrobe, and make up are unimpeachable. It's a story about Africa that takes place more than seventy years ago and there isn't a lion in it. (We get a glimpse of someone's pet leopard.) No elephants. No native uprisings. Only a colony of rich dissolutes in the foreground and impassive black Africans serving drinks and holding spears, while someone goes mad and an empire dies.

Michael Neumann This cynical drama set in pre-WWII colonial Kenya (where the lifestyles of the rich and decadent were enhanced by casual drug abuse and infidelity) presents a glossy but unfocused account of a May-December marriage of convenience, brought to a tragic end after one too many indiscreet liaisons between frustrated young wife Greta Scacchi and local Casanova Charles Dance. The film is based on a true story, widely reported at the time (in England, at least), and like its two lovers is cool and dispassionate and pleasant to look at. But the script makes the fatal mistake of sanitizing the illicit affair with feelings of true love, and because all the sex is conducted with such impeccable protocol the effect is more polite than shocking. Director and co-writer Michael Radford's script is full of barbed and witty dialogue, but re-writes history for a dramatically tidy (and quite bloody) resolution.

Philby-3 Adapted from James Fox's non-fiction book of the same name, 'White Mischief' recounts the mystery of the murder of Scottish aristocrat and noted philanderer Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll in Kenya in 1941. The husband of one of his conquests, Sir 'Jock' Delves Broughton, was tried for the murder, but acquitted. While the book is really an example of investigatory, not to say obsessive, journalism on the part of Fox and his mentor at the Sunday Times, Cyril Connolly, Michael Radford's film is more evocative of time and place.Most colonial history has the rejects of the imperial society setting out to the colonies to better themselves, but Kenya between 1900 and 1940 proved a rare exception when a significant number of wealthy aristocratic English moved to the 'White Highlands' to settle. Others were found to do the actual work of ranching or coffee-growing and there was little for the rich to do except be idle. So grew the legend of the 'Happy Valley ' set, where drugs and alcohol fuelled continuous debauchery.By the time the events covered in this movie occurred, the 'Happy Valley' period was pretty well over with several of the leading lights having succumbed to the rigours of the lifestyle. But Erroll (Charles Dance, charming) a veteran of the Valley is still surrounded by admiring women and has little trouble attracting Diana Broughton (Greta Scaachi, sizzling) when she arrives in 1940 from England to escape the war. Her husband Sir Jock (Joss Ackland, his best performance ever), 30 years older, knows Diana married him for money and security. She knows Erroll is broke but thinks Jock will pay her off. What she doesn't know is that Jock, through bad luck and mismanagement, has lost most of his considerable fortune (he once owned a good slice of Cheshire) and looks like losing the rest. (The film does not mention that the real Sir Jock had by 1940 committed serious fraud on at least two occasions to get himself out of financial difficulty).In the film, Jock takes a while to realise what is going on, and then appears to accept the situation, even hosting a dinner at the Muthaiga Club in honour of the happy adulterous couple. Next morning Erroll is found shot dead in his car a couple of miles from the Broughton's house in suburban Nairobi. The case against Jock is not strong, and not carefully put together. He is represented by a first-rate South African trial lawyer, Harry Morris (Ray McAnally, in an uncharacteristically weak performance), who has little trouble evoking the sympathy of an all-white settlor jury.The aftermath, for evident artistic reasons, is altered for the film, but the sense of it is still there. Within a short time Jock is dead, and Diana marries the eccentric Gilbert Colville (John Hurt, convincing), who is the biggest rancher in the colony. The last scene, where Diana comes across a cocktail party being held in a graveyard on the shores of Lake Naivasha at the request of one of the deceased, an alumni of Happy Valley, is quite surreal, and somehow captures the evanescence of it all, the fleeting moment between birth and death we call life. This part of Africa is sometimes said to be the Garden of Eden, the paradisaical place where mankind originated, and it's a truly beautiful place, but it's also clear the serpents were there all along.Since this movie was made, a new theory about Erroll's death has emerged; that he was done to death by the British Security services as it was thought his fascist sympathies would make him likely to pass intelligence to the Italians (Erroll was a deskbound officer in the army). A lady called Eroll Trzebinski, resident in Kenya for 30 years, published a book 'The Life and Death of Lord Erroll' in 1999. Ms Trzebinski has written three other books including a well-received biography of Karen Blixen's lover Dennys Finch-Hatton. Well, I suppose it's no less credible than the theory Diana did it.PS Another version of the story is told by Julian Fellowes in his "Most Mysterious Murder " TV series (2005). It's not a patch on this one but pretty convincingly identifies Jock as the culprit, with Diana accessory after the fact.

Chloe13141414 Was well into the film before I realized it was based on the factual story of a famous murder case. I was transported and still feel that way every time I get a chance to enjoy it again. I forgot who the actors were-they became the characters. That's how you know a film is splendid. I love the restraint of a fine British actor. No words are wasted. A glance tells it all. Everyone in the cast should be knighted by the Queen! I'll drop her Majesty a line right away. Chloe