Multi-Oscar-winning director Joseph L Mankiewicz ended his cinema career on a high note with this virtuoso version of the famous stage play. The two central roles have provided prime acting material for a number of actors down the years, and Laurence Olivier (in particular) and Michael Caine enjoy themselves enormously with them here. Both they and Mankiewicz earned Academy Award nominations, but that was the year in which 'The Godfather' swept the Oscars board. The only problem with a cinema version of the play's famous puzzle plot is that the film camera has a penetrating and enquiring eye, so that some of the story's deceptions, disguises, decoys and detours appear more transparent than when viewed from the safer distance of the theatre stalls. But the film is richly enjoyable for all that, with Ken Adam's inventive production design a marvel in itself.


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