Don Boyd, a director of some talent, went to Sri Lanka (attractively photographed) to make this romantic adventure drama much akin to the work of Somerset Maugham and did pretty well everything wrong. The editing is limp, the performances barely adequate, the soundtrack raucous and the music (especially the songs) hopelessly inapt. Boyd just about manages to keep a grip on it up to a dreadfully stylised and unconvincing love scene in a plantation garden, followed by a singer trilling East of Elephant Rock in the background. From then on, this overheated melodrama, despite what anyone can do, lies in ruins. Judi Bowker is far too young for a role that needed a Glenda Jackson's dominance to give it any chance; John Hurt does what he can with the hero but it isn't very much. Bette Davis and director William Wyler brought a similar thing off to perfection in The Letter, but if they'd put a foot wrong, this could have been the result.


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