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In several of the reviews, mention was made of the class differences between Michael Caine, taking the part of an English blue-blood Lieutenant , and Stanley Baker, also as a Lieutenant and a Welsh patriot. The likelihood of a person from Michael Caine's background making officer at the time of the Zulu wars, is asking rather too much. Similarly, with Stanley Baker.

Snobbery was at the core of the British officer class and commissions were closely monitored. A top-class tailor might just make a good-looking East-End Cockney sit a horse and pretend to be a Cavalry officer. But once Mr. Caine starts to speak, the cat is out of the bag.

This failure, possibly, lay with the casting director. Caine auditioned for the Cockney Private - spot-on - but the casting director felt that his looks were too good for a private.

What was the woman thinking? It just doesn't work - at any level. There was a time when Received Pronunciation (RP) was drilled into all aspiring British actors & actresses. The result was, ofttimes, a highly affected accent, the speaker sounding, like Julie Andrews, for instance, as though they had a marble in their mouth.

Consider "The Four Feathers" - from the late 1930s. Apart, possibly, from C. Aubrey Smith, the men spoke with strangulated vowels - Harry Faversham became Herry Fevvershem etc...

Suspension of disbelief is stretched to the limit with miscasting. Zulu is carried by the action; the set pieces, but the sympathy lies with the Zulus, not with the miscast Baker & Caine.

If contrast is needed, consider David Niven, the quintessential upper-class English gentleman. He doesn't have to do anything other than be himself. In "The Guns of Navarone" he plays a private and no one would question his motives in declining to be an officer. We know he would pass the Recruiting Board if he applied.

In "Bedtime Story" Niven plays an aristocratic confidence trickster. It is not surprising that gullible women fall for his unassuming charm.

In the less than riveting remake, "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (both films have appalling titles) Michael Caine is miscast as the aristocrat. He could easily play a confidence trickster (in a different film). He was perfect in Mona Lisa, as the East-End pimp.

But this is not my point.

Bruce Willis, a fine action man, was cast as a posh English newspaper reporter in "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and who can forget Marlon Brando fopping his way through the remake of "Mutiny on The Bounty"? The problem is that one must believe in the identity of the character portrayed. If they are totally miscast, as is the case with Caine, they become comical & unbelievable.

Enough. I rest my case & hope that someone in Hollywood will take note & make their characters believable.

Think Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe or Bette Davis as Margot Channing.

Think Kristin Scott-Thomas as an upper class English lady.

Geddit?

I have taken my heading from William Boyd's short story, where he quotes from Murray & Ginsberg's Dictionary of Cinema (1949)- "Persistence of vision is a trick the eye possesses to fill in the gaps between discrete images and makes them appear perfectly contiguous. This is what make animation work." (unquote). The Awful Truth is a soufflé; a puff of make believe. It has little relevance in the real world and those who picked holes in the plot; costumes; structures etc. missed the point. Nor is comparison a fair basis for the judgement of the absolutes of any piece of work. Each must stand on its own. The whether or not of Oscar worth is as irrelevant as the Booker & Whitbread awards for writing. These show-biz promotions are all based on the subjective views of the judges - sometimes skewed by commercial and financial considerations. So we must ultimately fall back on whether we like The Awful Truth. And, if so, Why - what is its secret ingredient that has allowed it has survive since 1937 as a firm favourite film of so many people? The 80 odd positive contributors have given the overwhelming answer that The Awful Truth is a brilliantly fabricated film, far- divorced from the realities of ordinary life. Just try & mention where anyone might venture in the outfits worn by Irene Dunne! There is not a speck of dirt anywhere in the houses visited! The Awful truth is Cinema escapism at its best. If you want reality, try A Streetcar Named Desire. If you want to be confused, try Antonioni or Wim Wenders. If you want to be charmed, try ET or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We, the cinema viewers have been blessed by the genius of Leo McCarey and the casting director of The Awful Truth. It is a perfect film and must have been the perfect antidote to the miseries of the Great Depression. In fact there is a pressing need for a Leo McCarey to offer us a bit of sunshine in these gloomy days, so redolent of 1930. Some mention has been made of the slow start. But what an opportunity it gave the divine Irene Dunne to make her gowned & jewelled entrance, closely followed by her Music Teacher, the impossibly handsome Armand (Alexander d'Arcy). From that point the film takes off as though turbo-charged and never lets up. Cary Grant is sublime, rarely needing words to express his feelings; Ralph Bellamy as Oklahoma Man - Dan Leeson:- "I'm in oil, y'know", whose little story about the rooster is told with the utmost seriousness; Joyce Compton is amazing as the night-club singer/dancer Dixie Bell, while Cecil Cunningham, as Aunt Patsy, gets some tremendous one-liners such as - "Here's your diploma." handing Dan his P45 (Lucy's farewell note). The dance sequences in the night-club; the farcical attempt by Cary Grant to explain his father's exploits whilst at Princeton, with Dunne, made up like a 5-dollar tart, interrupting his every word. These are unrepeatable gems and when I say repeat, I sometimes quail at the thought that the money-men in Hollywood might be tempted to attempt just that. With their complete lack of nous, they would likely miscast Michael Caine as Warriner; Joan Collins as Lucy and, probably, Gene Wilder as Leeson. And, if you don't believe that they are capable of sabotage, have a look at "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and consider that Caine was reprising David Niven, the quintessential English gentleman, who played the part in "Bedroom Story" (the original - with Marlon Brando & Shirley Jones). As a treat, I am going to stay up late & watch it again.

William Boyd has shown himself to be one of the finest readers & chroniclers of the Human Condition writing today. It is almost a badge of honour that he has not won an award from one of the product placement companies. My first exposure to his work was a short-story called "The Persistence of Vision" - a perfect gem. Whenever I get depressed with the current offerings in the shops, I revert and, within seconds, I am transported. If I were to say that the life of Logan Mountstuart parallels my own to an almost spooky degree, it is not to say that I have played golf with some HRH & had my matches nicked. I have never jumped from an airplane or worked as a spy. One thing is certain: William Boyd is a far better writer than Ernest Hemingway ever was.

Today, like Logan Mountstuart, as I sort out photographs and ancient family papers, I find - often depressing - aspects of that earlier life, the appalling personal loss of a loved one, letters of despair. Here and there a picture drawn by a loved child.

As I said, Mountstuart is Everyman. He was not a bold boy; nor a bad man. He was easily led, but he is a good man; honourable, in a way that Peter Scabius was false. And so, Boyd leads us alongside this fallible man; while we, on occasion, find ourselves aching to say to him "Don't!" It would be better to read the book in the first instance; the screenplay follows the same sequence and one is more prepared for the jump-shifts in time. It is what I call a satisfying read; what I would like to write if I had the talent.

The acting is universally faithful to the characters, especially Matthew Mac Fadyean, who is utterly convincing & sympathetic.

If the producers are going to transfer this to DVD, please keep it intact, as they did in the excellent VHS version of "Armadillo" - which suffered badly in the compressed version, on DVD.

It is supremely gratifying to find that there is an audience who can relate to great drama; who have the patience to follow a complex storyline and debate its merits or otherwise. Sunday is going to seem empty when it ends.