Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Steineded How sad is this?

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

tomsview Although I wouldn't say this is a great movie, it is definitely an entertaining one.The film tells the mostly true story of the fairly outrageous goings on amongst upper class Britons in Kenya during WW2. If the film does anything, it captures that outrageous spirit perfectly.Aging Sir John Henry Delves Broughton (Joss Ackland) leaves war-torn England with his beautiful young wife, Diana (Greta Scacchi), to oversee his properties in British Kenya. They join other ex-pat aristocrats in the incongruously named Happy Valley community. Although cocooned from the war in Europe, the denizens of the valley are completely at the mercy of the boredom generated by their privileged lifestyles, and their overheated libidos. They joyously encourage new arrivals to cheat on their partners, and then just as joyously inform the other halves about what is going on. Broughton begins to realise that he has something more disturbing than German bombs and falling commodity prices to worry about when Diana begins an open affair with Josslyn Hay, the Earl of Erroll (Charles Dance).Eventually it all ends in tears, murder and suicide.The film was not successful at the box office, and it's hard to pick just what put people off. However there is a fair amount of nudity in the film, which I think still tends to alienate mainstream audiences. Maybe the whole thing sounded too unsavoury - Diana is irresistible to males, especially older ones with even Trevor Howard's character peeping at her in the bath. There isn't anyone in the story whose intentions are strictly honourable.But with that said, the performances are fascinating. Joss Ackland is superb; we feel his humiliation as the virile Erroll offers Diana what he can't. The 1940's probably wasn't the most flattering period for fashions, however Greta Scacchi looks stunning in them - she reminded me of Lana Turner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice".Charles Dance exudes an element of danger, much like Vincent Cassel. Tall and lithe, he wears black tie beautifully, but when he strips down you see how fit and agile he is - not a man to be trifled with."White Mischief" has a certain pace and style and glides by easily. It stays in the memory, and is a long way from being a bad movie.

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.

rosscinema This story is loosely based on a real scandal that occurred in Kenya during the second world war and the film captures all the decadent events that were happening in an area nicknamed "Happy Valley". Story takes place in 1940 in Kenya where Sir Jock Delves Broughton (Joss Ackland) has brought back with him a much younger bride. Jock is in his 60's and his new bride Diana (Greta Scacchi) is probably more than 30 years younger. Diana meets the assorted British colonists that live there and spend their time drinking and going to parties and having sex with one another. Diana meets the local stud Josslyn Hay (Charles Dance) and it doesn't take long before the two are having a very public affair much to the chagrin of Jock. One night Joss drops Diana off and proceeds to drive down the road when someone appears out of the darkness and shoots Joss in the head killing him. *****SPOILER ALERT*****Jock is quickly accused of the murder and has to stand trial where it becomes a media circus. Jock is acquitted of the murder of Joss and Diana goes back to live with him but has serious thoughts that he was in fact guilty of her lovers murder. This film was directed by Michael Radford who also had directed the vastly underrated "1984". He would go on to direct other interesting films such as "Il Postino", "B. Monkey" and "Dancing at the Blue Iguana". In those films Radford has shown a knack for filming stories in exotic locations and also showing the more decadent lifestyles of individuals. He does that here in this film as well and even though the material is presented in a trashy manner, Radford still creates genuine moments with effective atmosphere. Scacchi is utterly beautiful to watch and her nude scenes are not easily forgotten. The best performance in the film comes from Ackland who has spent most of his film career being a character actor. His most effective scene is where he is sitting on his bed with a tear coming down his face while he contemplates what he should do. John Hurt plays a character named Gilbert Colvile and barely utters more than two words at a time. I had the feeling that his character was there just to make him another suspect in the murder. One of the more interesting bits of casting (For me anyway) is Jacqueline Pearce as Idina. I grew up watching Pearce in the Hammer horror films and it was quite the sight to see her in the nude in this film. Despite her age she was still very beautiful to look at. Also, a very young Hugh Grant has a small role at the beginning of the film. This is definitely a step down for a good director like Radford but he does capture the spirit of these people who are doing they're best to ignore the fact that a war is raging on in their own home country. The last shot in the film perfectly illustrates this as everyone gets together at the funeral of a close friend to have another party.

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.