User reviews

This is the very best of late Graham Greene in a fine made for tv adaptation with a superb cast. A defining treatment of the essence of greed, this is a must see drama that ticks all the boxes: compelling story, fine acting, clever adaptation that leaves out little from its great literary source. Quite unbelievable that this has not yet seen a release on DVD. Can someone just please get that done?

Very unique view into Swiss society as I remember which is so seldom seen. It got the attention of James Mason at the height of his career, that says a lot.

It must be some sort of legal battle over rights I imagine.

A few films like this I have seen at the Toronto Film Festival and we were told that after its promised Toronto screenings it will never be seen again - that's my guess.

Its a punishment to the filmmakers because someone doesn't feel that their piece is large enough or a copy write issue perhaps - no fault of the film.

We are punished.

I haven't seen this since it aired twenty years ago. How I would love to see it again, to see the excruciating, humiliating dinner parties with the "toads" as guests, greedy for their gifts from the host for whom they care nothing. The last party, so beautiful with the torches and carpets outside in the snow, has the one trick gift that will put an end to it all. The principals turn in wonderful performances, and there are a number of character actors whose performances are memorable.

Please, let us see this on DVD, before there is no one left to add commentary.

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.